The Swordmaster Wants To Live Peacefully [EN]: Chapter 6

Swordmaster Wants to Live in Peace – Episode 6

Swordmaster Wants to Live in Peace 6

The Qualification of the Living

Since the Frost Forest was perpetually covered in frost, it wasn’t difficult to find the messy footprints left by people.

The two followed the traces, advancing deeper into the forest.

And inevitably, they encountered the monsters that dwelled within the Frost Forest.

Canine beasts, roughly the size of adult men, appeared to wear the pure white frost as their fur.

The creatures, with gleaming yellow eyes, bared their teeth, peering out from behind the thick tree trunks.

“White Fangs.”

“It means white beasts,” Yoo Ji-woo clarified.

Yoo Seong-woo reached out, quietly summoning his lifebond weapon.

The blood-colored sword materialized in his hand, shimmering with a faint, ethereal light.

In that instant, the head of a White Fang, which had been peeking from behind a tree, was severed, rolling onto the ground and spraying blue blood.

Yoo Ji-woo, who had been preparing to join the battle, froze, utterly dumbfounded.

As the heads of the White Fangs fell in quick succession, as if being harvested, she could only narrow her brows in bewilderment.

“W-What was that?”

“Swordsmanship.”

“Not some kind of superpower?”

“I can’t use things like that. I can’t use magic either.”

“……That’s insane.”

“Didn’t I tell you? You needed to know how strong I am.”

With those words, Yoo Seong-woo stepped over the White Fang’s corpse and continued onward.

White Fangs were monsters that Yoo Ji-woo could easily handle, but not with such effortless speed and precision as Yoo Seong-woo.

She replayed his movements in her mind, trying to dissect his technique as she followed behind him.

The footprints remained, a messy trail imprinted on the frosted ground.

They passed the corpse of another White Fang, covered in frost, indicating a previous skirmish. It seemed the group they were tracking had fought here before moving on.

The two passed over the White Fang’s corpse.

Still, there were no human corpses to be found.

As they reached what appeared to be the center of the Frost Forest, sleet began to fall.

Looking up, they saw small snowflakes fluttering down from the sky.

“The environment changes rapidly as you enter the center,” Yoo Seong-woo remarked, swinging his sword.

The blade, moving like lightning, struck down a White Fang that had leaped from a tree, sending it crashing to the ground.

As if pulling something from his pocket, he effortlessly dispatched six White Fangs, flicking the blue blood from his sword before speaking.

“Judging by the White Fangs we’ve defeated, they seemed quite hungry. That suggests no one has been successfully hunted yet.”

“You can even tell that?”

“It’s a survival skill I’ve learned. And the footprints split up ahead. Something must have happened around here. It doesn’t seem like they fought the White Fangs, but it looks like they split up in a panic. Don’t divers [those who explore dungeons] learn things like that?”

“……Usually, they don’t. What divers learn isn’t tracking, but combat. What kind of variable appeared in a 5-star dungeon?”

Yoo Ji-woo chewed her fingernails again, a nervous habit.

These were the people she had sent in: the research team, their escort, and the rescue team. Precious colleagues that she couldn’t afford to lose, not even one.

If it was something she could handle alone, she wouldn’t have bothered borrowing Yoo Seong-woo’s strength, but people’s lives were at stake.

While she was dwelling on her mistakes, Yoo Seong-woo had already decided which way to go.

“I’m going to the right. There are more footprints on this side. Judging by the depth of the prints, it seems like ordinary people are mixed in, too.”

From now on, it’s a race against time.

* * *

“Kkeueueueue…….”

Deep within the Frost Forest, where everything was encased in ice.

A painful groan escaped from a natural cave formed beneath the roots of a large tree.

“Just hold on a little longer. The rescue team will be here soon.”

“Damn…….”

Inside the cave, five people huddled around a ‘light-emitting heat stone’ lantern [a magical artifact], carved from stones that emitted both light and heat, trying to suppress their moans of pain.

Four were ordinary members of the research team, while the fifth, lying on the floor and vomiting, was a B-class diver from the escort team.

During their escape to this refuge, one member of the escort team had gone missing, and another had been injured and collapsed.

“There’s no way the rescue team will come. If that thing is still out there, even an S-class diver wouldn’t stand a chance!”

“Trust the director. She’s never disappointed us before.”

“No matter what, this time is impossible. Impossible…….”

They were terrified, their words laced with negativity.

One person turned his head, peering out of the cave, and was met with a heavy snowstorm.

Fortunately, the snow wasn’t pouring directly into the cave, but the blizzard was so intense that it created a whiteout, obscuring everything.

They wouldn’t be able to escape the cave until the snow cleared.

The raging blizzard was slowly stealing their hope. Their voices grew weaker, and silence began to settle in.

The white hell was slowly closing in, and the cold seeped into their bones. The heat from the light-emitting heat stone lantern began to wane.

“……I have to go, I have to go! I have to go! I have to go!”

One of the researchers suddenly jumped to his feet, staring out of the cave.

It was the madness that people succumbed to in the white hell, buried in the snow.

One of the escort team members had already succumbed, running out in a similar state.

And of course, he, consumed by madness, who ran out into the blizzard, never returned.

It was unknown whether he was still wandering in the blizzard or had frozen to death.

The others raised their heads, watching him, and instinctively tried to grab him, but they were too late; he was already gone.

They couldn’t bring themselves to chase after him. No, they wouldn’t.

The look in his eyes as he stared out of the cave…

It was because they had seen those eyes, filled with a golden light and glittering with madness, fixated on something in the white hell.

There was an invisible monster outside. A monster trying to drag them out of the cave and push them into white despair.

A scream echoed, a mere noise swallowed by the white world. The scream slowly faded away.

The more they realized the fear that was consuming them, the more helpless they became. There was nothing they could do.

Just as they were about to lose all hope, a sharp voice cut through the white world.

“Everyone’s gathered here.”

“Everyone. I came to save you!”

Into the tree root cave strode a man with a sturdy build and a woman.

Despite having braved the blizzard, they entered the cave without a single snowflake on their clothes, and tossed the two people they were carrying onto the floor.

It was the missing escort and the researcher who had run outside.

“D-Director!”

“It’s the director! How did you get all the way here?!”

“I just walked here normally. We’re going to escape from now on. Support the injured.”

“W-Wait a minute, Director. I don’t know how you got here, but escape is impossible. There’s a huge monster outside, so we’re trapped here too.”

“A huge monster?”

“Yes. And the snow outside is so heavy that you can’t see ahead…….”

“The snow is heavy? That can’t be. It’s only sleeting.”

“Yes?”

The researcher tilted his head, confused by Yoo Ji-woo’s words. What on earth was she talking about?

He looked outside the cave, still unable to comprehend. Outside, a heavy snowstorm was still raging.

Such heavy snow that you couldn’t see even an inch ahead.

But Yoo Ji-woo and Yoo Seong-woo looked at the researchers with expressions that seemed to ask what they were talking about.

“It’s snowing heavily outside…… Come to think of it, you two don’t have many snowflakes on you either. And it’s incredibly cold, are you okay in those clothes?”

“What are you talking about? Have you gone crazy from being trapped here for too long?”

“Hmm. It’s sleeting for us, but it looks like a heavy snowstorm to them. Is it a hallucination?”

“Hallucination?”

Yoo Seong-woo nodded at Yoo Ji-woo’s question.

There was something he had been pondering ever since he entered the Frost Forest.

A gaze that he felt from somewhere. It felt like he was being watched from afar, and also like he was being watched from nearby, making it impossible to pinpoint.

But it was certain that the gaze felt tainted.

Based on his many years of experience, such gazes were often associated with illusionary magic designed to disrupt the mind.

‘……Is it materializing fear in the form of snow?’

Was that the reason?

All the plants in the Frost Forest were covered in frost.

The plants were encased in frost, a manifestation of the murderous intent emanating from the ruler of the Frost Forest.

And the same was true for those who entered later.

As they succumbed to the unknown fear, it became a reality, manifesting as a strong gale and snow.

‘The reason why only sleet was visible to me and Ji-woo is because it was offset by my mental strength. The result of Ji-woo’s fear not suppressing my mental strength.’

Even an S-class diver is susceptible to the fear of the unknown.

If she hadn’t been with Yoo Seong-woo, she might have fallen into the abyss’s trap and been trapped in a heavy blizzard like them.

It could be said that the abyss was as vicious as it was malicious.

Yoo Seong-woo, having deciphered the secret of the Frost Forest through brief contemplation based on his extensive experience and knowledge, nodded.

He couldn’t simply eliminate their fears.

Even if he forcibly took them with him, it would undoubtedly be a troublesome endeavor.

Therefore, the only remaining option was to confront and eliminate the master of the Frost Forest.

“It would be best for you to wait here until I deal with that guy. Ji-woo, let’s go.”

“Ah, yeah. Wait here as this person says.”

“Yes? Yes?! Aren’t you taking us with you?!”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“You can come out when the snow stops. You’ll only be a hindrance if you follow me.”

“Ah, no! Even if the director is an S-class diver, even if the person next to you is also an S-class, no! Our escort team needs at least ten people, including at least one S-class…….”

“Be quiet and wait.”

Yoo Seong-woo said this and exited the tree root cave with Yoo Ji-woo.

The two figures disappeared into the white hell, vanishing from the researcher’s sight.

The two’s steps were confident, but to the researcher, it just looked like a path to death.

* * *

An icy forest where sleet falls.

On the surface, it looks romantic, but those who walk inside are standing on thin ice.

Yoo Seong-woo, who had placed those wandering in the forest in a frenzy into the tree root cave, took a long breath and clicked his tongue.

“The view is narrow because of the trees. I can’t see well.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Like this.”

Yoo Seong-woo took a short breath and unleashed his sword.

A flash of blood-colored light in an instant. At the same time, a strong wind blew, driving away the sleet and sweeping away all the trees in front.

As the trees fell at once, the view ahead was clear.

Yoo Ji-woo twitched her facial muscles, dumbfounded by the suddenly widened view, while Yoo Seong-woo stretched, saying he felt refreshed.

“How strong are you, Oppa?”

Only then did Yoo Ji-woo realize that what she had seen in the measurement room was not the full extent of Yoo Seong-woo’s power.

There were the appearances he has shown so far.

A slash that can’t even be seen. A scene of sweeping through the forest in an instant.

He also subdued a B-class diver who was rushing in madly in the blink of an eye.

“I’ll let you know soon.”

Saying that, Yoo Seong-woo raised his head. Beyond the clear view, a snow mountain stood proudly.

The snow mountain, devoid of any shadows, looked foreign and beautiful, a sight that could make you lose your mind just by looking at it.

However, Yoo Seong-woo raised his sword and pointed at the snow mountain.

“That is not a snow mountain. It’s a disguised monster.”

“That’s……?”

“Yes. There was a gaze that I had been feeling ever since I came here, but now that the view is clear, I can definitely feel it. That snow mountain is the owner of this Frost Forest.”