Chapter 65

Promise (8)

The monster before us was a yeti covered from head to toe in white fur.

A legendary-class monster—the Snow Giant.

As far as I knew, it was not supposed to be here.

‘Because that thing doesn’t attack humans.’

Humans were so small that they did not even qualify as a snack for it.

It normally lived far away from the sectors, feeding on large-class monsters. It was said to control the weather through the jewel embedded in the center of its forehead.

‘Then was this sudden blizzard its doing too?’

It possessed the supernatural ability to manipulate the weather, making it closer to a mystical beast than an ordinary monster.

So why had such a creature come all the way here and started targeting the newly commissioned officers?

‘Is it really a player?’

Just in case, I activated Character Inspection on the Snow Giant.

If it were a player, Character Inspection should have worked, but the system showed no response.

‘That means it isn’t a player…’

Even as I drew closer, the creature remained completely still.

‘It’s looking at something.’

If it had spotted something out here in the snowfield, it had to be the new officers.

Without slowing the bike, I jumped off.

My legs were too short to bring it to a safe stop anyway.

The bike continued forward and crashed straight into the creature’s backside, but the Snow Giant did not appear to suffer any damage. It merely scratched the point of impact a few times with one thickly furred hand.

Still, I did not need to worry about being unable to hurt it.

‘It’s still a monster, after all.’

After rolling a couple of times across the snowfield and regaining my balance, I pulled the largest firearm in my inventory.

The weapon could not fire in bursts, but its ammunition was specifically designed to dissolve a monster’s flesh and hide. A direct hit could penetrate even the thick chest of a monster.

As long as the Snow Giant’s body was still that of a monster, any part struck by this weapon would inevitably melt away.

Of course, no matter how destructive the weapon was, it would be useless if I failed to hit the jewel. That was why large-scale subjugation operations were still necessary despite the weapon’s development.

I had not expected that even after teaching them how to identify the location of a monster’s jewel, nobody except Stay-at-Home Wifey would be able to use the method properly.

Fortunately, this monster’s jewel was embedded in its forehead.

Unfortunately, its forehead was impossibly high above us.

“Get down!”

I shouted and pulled the trigger, aiming at the creature’s abdomen.

A massive, nail-like bullet tore through its flesh, dissolving it as it punched out through the other side.

“Uaaagh!”

This time, the creature seemed to feel pain. Its enormous body shuddered.

Looking through the hole in the middle of its torso, I saw Lucas’s startled face and Bones’s tear-streaked one.

The instant I saw Bones’s face, I swallowed a disbelieving laugh.

Lucas shouted toward me.

“Lord Haydam! Above you!”

The gun in my hands could not fire repeatedly and needed to be reloaded, so I dropped it without hesitation.

Then I pulled a smoke grenade from my inventory and fired it above my head.

A dense cloud formed overhead, obscuring the monster’s vision. A gigantic hand descended through the cloud, but it failed to grab me and closed around empty air.

While it was distracted, I pressed close to the creature’s body and ran around to the other side to join the newly commissioned officers.

As I did, I finally understood why the Snow Giant had come all the way here.

‘Are those… the monsters from earlier?’

Through the organs that had melted from my bullet, the partially digested corpses of large-class monsters came sliding out.

Those creatures had fled across the crevasse zone, only to encounter the Snow Giant on the other side.

To avoid being eaten, they must have fled back toward our sector. The Snow Giant had followed while devouring them and eventually made its way here.

‘So now there’s no way to learn anything about those strange monsters.’

At least I had confirmed one thing.

This Snow Giant definitely was not a player.

If it had been, there would not have been food remaining in its stomach.

However, as though proving that it was a monster from an extraterrestrial world, the hole I had made in its body was rapidly closing.

Even after I reached the other side, the creature was still flailing around inside the smoke cloud, trying to find me.

While its attention was elsewhere, I ran with all my strength and joined the officers.

“Lord Haydam!”

Lucas greeted me with a bizarre expression that mixed relief and embarrassment.

Unlike Lucas, who was at least holding a firearm, Bones lay face down with blood running from his shoulder.

“Why is that bastard still lying there?”

“Ah, well…”

When Lucas glanced awkwardly at Bones, Bones muttered in a fading voice.

“Forget it. Just leave me behind and…”

Before he could finish telling us to run, I slapped him across the face.

Lucas stared at me in horror when I struck an injured man.

“Lord Haydam!”

“Stop being dramatic, Bones. You can still move.”

Even though I had slapped him, Bones did not look angry or resentful. Instead, he lowered his head.

“My father abandoned me because I’m this kind of person, didn’t he?”

“Bones.”

This time, instead of hitting him, I placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Do you honestly believe Lieutenant General Max—your father—tried to have you killed?”

Bones looked up at me as though those words had snapped him awake.

“Are you really going to doubt your own father based solely on what that lunatic said?”

“Th-Then…”

“I don’t know the truth either. But at the very least, I’m going to confirm it myself. I’ll find out whether my father truly abandoned me.”

I had been suspicious from the moment I heard what Team Two’s leader had said.

As someone who had completed every sector, I knew that Team Two’s leader had never done anything that would give Lieutenant General Max grounds to threaten him.

During my playthrough of the Cola Sector, he had also been an extremely loyal officer in Hayden’s faction.

In my opinion, Team Two’s leader had targeted Bones while invoking Lieutenant General Max’s name specifically to cause trouble for the lieutenant general.

Lieutenant General Max was so good-natured that even the soldiers trusted him deeply.

If it appeared that he had tried to kill Bones merely because Bones had refused to obey him, the other officer cadets under his patronage would also turn against him.

This had to be a scheme devised by the pro-Hayden faction.

Then again, there was no way a mere colonel had come up with something like this on his own…

‘Looks like Josef doesn’t intend to retire quietly either.’

In any case, just as I had told Bones, the quickest solution was to return and confirm the truth ourselves.

“Use this for first aid.”

I took a medical kit from my inventory and handed it over.

Lucas stared at me with a somewhat frightened expression.

“Where in the world did you just pull that from?”

As if he would believe me if I told him about the inventory.

“Just treat him. We have to rescue His Excellency.”

“What?!”

Both of them shouted this time.

Bones seemed to have recovered his senses somewhat. He stopped in the middle of picking up his weapon and looked at me.

“Is His Excellency in danger too?”

“He fell into the crevasse over there. Fortunately, he didn’t fall very far, so he isn’t badly injured. We need to go and pull him back up.”

“I’ll finish the treatment immediately.”

“Hurry. Our lives are in danger too.”

Despite the Snow Giant standing before us, Lucas went pale at the news that the Commander was in danger.

He practically poured disinfectant directly into Bones’s wound, causing Bones to scream.

“Fuck! Are you trying to kill me?!”

“Weren’t you just telling us to leave you here to die?!”

Seeing them bicker like that, it seemed both of them had recovered mentally to some extent.

‘The problem is the Snow Giant in front of us…’

Lucas and Bones did not know what a Snow Giant was, which actually allowed them to remain calmer.

They had probably seen me hunt large-class monsters as easily as a cat catching mice, so they seemed to think that even though the monster before us was considerably larger, I would still be able to kill it.

‘But… that’s impossible.’

Unless the creature lowered its head for me, hitting the jewel in its forehead from down here was nearly impossible.

I could shoot its legs and make it fall, but there was no guarantee we would not be crushed beneath its body.

More importantly, while I could blast holes through it, it would be difficult to inflict enough damage to make it lose its balance.

Even if I aimed for its legs, the first wounds would heal before I could completely sever one.

‘What should I do…?’

Then something unexpected happened.

The Snow Giant, which had been furiously digging through the snowfield inside the smoke cloud in search of me, suddenly began lumbering away in the direction I had come from without paying the slightest attention to us.

“It must think Lord Haydam fled that way.”

“Fuck, I thought we were dead.”

Bones, already back to his usual self, cursed in relief that the creature was leaving.

However, my expression hardened.

It was fortunate that the creature was so unintelligent due to its enormous size that it had simply passed us by.

But if it was heading in the direction I had come from, that meant the Commander was waiting at the end of its path.

The other two seemed to realize something from my expression.

“Don’t tell me His Excellency is… in the direction that thing is heading?”

I nodded.

The instant I did, Bones ran off somewhere.

He began dragging the bike out of the snow where it had been buried after bouncing away from its collision with the Snow Giant.

“What are you standing around for?! We have to follow it!”

That bastard Bones had been crawling on the ground and trembling just moments ago.

Still, it was fortunate that he could pull his own weight as long as his mind was intact.

Otherwise, risking my life to come all the way here and find him would have been pointless.

I left the driving to Lucas. I squeezed into the seat in front of him, while Bones crammed himself onto the back.

The moment we were aboard, the bike took off.

The Snow Giant was already far ahead of us.

“By the way, what the hell is that thing?”

Bones shouted at the top of his lungs as we rode.

“A Snow Giant! A legendary-class monster!”

“A legendary-class monster? Those exist?”

“It’s not originally from around here!”

“You’re both going to burst my eardrums! Shut up!”

When Bones and I continued shouting at each other with Lucas between us, Lucas finally lost his patience and yelled.

The Snow Giant had an enormous stride, but its overall movement speed was slow, so we caught up with it quickly.

The problem was that catching it did not give us any way to stop it.

We parked the bike a short distance from the creature’s path and watched it walk.

“…How are we supposed to stop that?”

Lucas asked while craning his neck back as far as it would go just to see the creature’s head.

“Should we ram it with the bike?”

“I already tried that.”

After answering Bones, I silently observed the monster.

At this rate, it would soon reach the crevasse where the Commander was trapped.

It was possible that nothing would happen.

I had hurried after it because I feared that the tremors caused by its movement might collapse the crevasse further.

However, the creature had slowed considerably as it looked around the snowfield, apparently searching for me.

‘It would be nice if it simply returned to its territory without causing trouble…’

We maintained our distance and followed it slowly.

I had decided that praying for it to leave peacefully was better than provoking it and causing the crevasse to collapse.

However, as though mocking my hopes, the creature reached the crevasse and began extending a hand down toward the cliff below.

“What is it doing?”

Lucas and Bones looked puzzled by the creature’s sudden behavior.

But I immediately understood what it was trying to do.

Because I knew exactly who was standing where it had reached its hand.