Chapter 37

Chapter 37
Chapter: 37

Chapter Title: Bratsk’s Frozen Slimes

—

Lee Ha-yoon stumbled toward the biometric sensor at the building’s entrance, her complexion ghostly, and pressed her palm against the glass.

Verification successful.
As the entrance retracted, Lee Ha-yoon heaved, coughing up a fresh pool of dark blood onto the floor.

“How are you feeling?”

A figure clad in a hood and tactical gear stood waiting in the foyer.

“Leader… please accept my apologies…”

The man responded to her plea with a soft, weary exhale. At the sound, Lee Ha-yoon’s frame gave a subtle shiver.

“You returned alive. That is sufficient for now.”

Lee Ha-yoon squeezed her hands into white-knuckled balls at his remark. Deep down, she knew it was far from sufficient.

“You did well. Resisting Lee Se-eun’s onslaught must have been grueling, even with your restrictions active. Prioritize your healing.”

With a sharp “Yes, sir,” Lee Ha-yoon bowed deeply and turned to depart.

“This is merely a minor stumble. One cannot reach the horizon without occasionally tripping. Since when did the spirit of the Korean people break after a single setback?”

Gojoseon, Goguryeo, Balhae… Lee Ha-yoon gave a firm nod as the leader invoked the names of the past.

“I am grateful. There will be no failure next time.”

“That is the resolve I expect. Keep your head high.”

Once she had vanished, the man glanced at his wrist, rose, and walked toward a specific infirmary. Inside, Kim Ji-hyun was reclined on a cot, looking drained of all life.

“How is your recovery progressing?”

Kim Ji-hyun shifted her breathing mask just enough to whisper a response.

“Improving… bit by bit.”

The Paradox Flame wielded by Yoo Chan-seok had utterly incinerated her muscular integrity, but physical power could be reconstructed through sheer grit and training. Recovery was a tangible possibility.

Even though she had been reduced to a husk, Kim Ji-hyun had clung to existence through the leader’s intervention and refused to give up. Her condition was stabilizing, step by agonizing step.

She had regained the ability to speak and control her facial muscles, which was a significant victory in itself.

“I still lack the strength to walk, however.”

The path back was grueling. Her vital organs still functioned only because he manually circulated mana through them, though her reliance on his help was slowly fading.

“I have faith you will conquer this.”

“That wretch… I will end him with my own strength.”

Her hatred for Yoo Chan-seok burned fiercely, yet the gap between them had grown immense. By the time Kim Ji-hyun reached her former peak, Yoo Chan-seok would likely have ascended to a height she could never hope to touch.

The man kept that observation to himself.

Vengeance. The man adjusted the bow strapped to his shoulders as he exited her quarters. He had the power to fly to Siberia this instant and finish the boy with a single shot, but the time wasn’t right. He required the specific mana signature unique to the hunter Yoo Chan-seok.

“If only there were a method.”

Standard bindings or suppression fields were useless. Given Yoo Chan-seok’s talent, he would simply tear through them.

The only option was to seize it. The man made his way to the sub-levels of the facility.

“Dr. Seo Hyun-woo.”

In person, Dr. Seo Hyun-woo looked nothing like a man of science. His lab attire was stained with various condiments and old food spills.

His rotund frame strained against the fabric of his coat, which he wore over a bare chest. Coarse, thick hair matted his large torso in a chaotic tangle.

The doctor was aggressively consuming a massive, uncut pizza with both hands, only noticing his visitor after a few more bites.

“Burp.”

A thunderous belch filled the room. He used his sleeve to wipe his face—adding more grease to his coat—and offered a belated greeting.

“What brings the boss down here?”

He wasn’t a man who commanded immediate respect through his appearance, but aesthetics were irrelevant. He might look like a beast, but his intellect was a vault filled with priceless brilliance.

“What is the status of the project?”

“It’s a long road, but it looks achievable.”

If Seo Hyun-woo used the word “achievable,” it was a guarantee. He was the type to declare something “impossible” without hesitation if he saw no path forward.

“That being said, I’m going to need a mountain of cash and quite a bit of time.”

He took a long pull from a giant bottle of soda, let out another burp, wiped his mouth again, and continued.

“Can you guarantee the resources?”

The man gave a solemn nod to the doctor’s query.

“You won’t have to worry about the budget. Just accelerate the process.”

“I’ll do what I can. It’s a damn shame about that barrier device, though. Had we unraveled its mechanics, we would be months ahead.”

“The trek across the Siberian wastes is extensive.”

There was no profit in mourning a lost opportunity. Other chances would manifest—and they only needed to succeed once. With that, their meeting concluded.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Once the chaos had settled, the locomotive resumed its thunderous journey across the rails, and we gathered for a strategy session in the command carriage.

The train had cleared Khabarovsk. The next stops were Irkutsk and then Novosibirsk. However, a massive obstacle stood between us and those cities.

“This is the primary reason the Trans-Siberian Railway has remained crippled for so long.”

Lee Se-eun looked more grim than I had ever seen her. She gestured toward a coordinate on the holographic map.

“Bratsk. This city is the site of a Grade 1 Erosion Core, colloquially known as the Refrigerator.”

Jasper took over the explanation from Lee Se-eun.

“It’s functionally similar to Canada’s Winter Closet, one of the Great Eight anomalies.”

Fortunately, it wasn’t quite as lethal as the Winter Closet. Because of the repeated attempts to restore the rail line, the intelligence gathered on the Bratsk Core was quite extensive.

“Our mission isn’t to neutralize a Grade 1 Core.”

The goal was simply to ensure the train made it through the Erosion Zone surrounding it.

“We will enter the zone’s influence shortly after we pass Ulan-Ude.”

We were running out of time. I wondered what sort of monstrosities awaited us.

“Slimes.”

“…You’re calling those slimes?”

The monitor displayed translucent entities the size of suburban homes, undulating forward like a slow-motion tsunami.

Their internal temperatures were equivalent to liquid nitrogen. Contact wouldn’t just cause frostbite; it would be catastrophic.

“Watch yourselves—our equipment is at risk here. Cold-compromised metal turns brittle and shatters, and those things are walking glaciers.”

“However, they do possess a vulnerability.”

Jasper pulled up the analytical data provided by Emargo Tower.

“The nucleus.”

Deep within those frozen, gelatinous masses was a central core that dictated the slime’s movements.

“The catch? If you kill one, the others can merge with the leftover mass.”

To illustrate, Jasper initiated a video clip.

The footage showed a team of hunters engaging two of the creatures. When one core was shattered, the remaining slime lunged at the puddle of its fallen kin, absorbing it and ballooning in size.

“Grade 1 zones are always a headache.”

The more of them you neutralized, the more powerful the survivors became.

I was well-acquainted with shifting, amorphous threats. Whether my previous knowledge held up in this reality remained to be seen.

I watched the footage again, clicking my tongue in annoyance.

“Look at the video—the spots that get hit seem to solidify.”

These weren’t your average fantasy slimes. Typical slimes were malleable, allowing a blade to pass through the gel to hit the center. These were different.

“They also boast high mana immunity. Furthermore, they’ve been seen trapping prey inside their bodies to dissolve them for rapid healing.”

So: physical and magical resistance, the ability to heal by eating enemies, and a collective buff for every one killed?

“We shouldn’t engage. We just need to drive them off.”

The group murmured in agreement. While Grade 1 monsters dropped top-tier materials, these things looked like more trouble than they were worth.

They weren’t just dangerous; their mechanics were genuinely obnoxious.

“We hit the zone in twenty minutes. Prepare yourselves.”

We wanted to keep casualties to zero, but navigating a Grade 1 zone made that a tall order.

The briefing broke up, and we moved to our combat stations.

“Just looking at the horizon makes my eyes ache.”

Standing atop the freight car of the racing train, I circulated my internal mana to fight off the biting wind while I scanned the tundra.

The world had turned into a seamless white void. The thermometers were reading nearly -30°C. Inside this Erosion Zone, the cold was a permanent fixture, ignoring the change of seasons.

“The Winter Closet in Canada usually sits at -70°C.”

Han Sang-ah had joined me on the roof of the car.

-70°C. Industrial tuna freezers usually bottom out at -50°C—that was significantly worse. By comparison, this was almost balmy.

The land was a graveyard; no one could survive here. The climate was too hostile, but…

“Incoming.”

That was the real reason.

Massive slimes, each at least 5 meters tall, were closing the distance on the train.

Before I could reach for my comms, the alarm sirens wailed; someone else had spotted them first.

“How are they keeping pace with a train at that size? That’s incredible.”

Their movement speed was shocking. They would sprout dozens of icy tentacles, anchor them into the permafrost, and slingshot their massive bodies forward.

Trailing plumes of freezing vapor, sliding across the ground like living glaciers—it was a terrifying sight.

“Positions! Ranged units, open fire!”

At the command, a storm of mana-enhanced projectiles and spells slammed into the front of the slime wave. Gouts of flame, spheres of light, and shadows rained down.

“That’s a lot of firepower,” Han Sang-ah remarked.

I shook my head.

“It won’t do a thing.”

That mana resistance wasn’t just a stat on paper. As the smoke cleared and the wind whipped the snow away, the slimes continued their advance, completely unbothered.

Unless we could bypass or strip that resistance, long-range bombardment was a waste of energy.

“…What a nuisance.”

Paradox Flame was also a mana-based ability. Trying to burn something with high mana resistance was like trying to start a fire in a rainstorm.

‘It’s like trying to burn water-logged wood.’

That was the essence of mana resistance. I could incinerate their movement, their life force—Paradox Flame was designed for that.

But those targets were shielded by a layer of mana-repellent energy.

Just as you have to dry out wet logs before they’ll catch, the Paradox Flame would have to burn through the mana resistance before it could touch the slime itself.

I keyed my radio to the open channel.

“I’ll handle the mana resistance stripping.”

Even without the shield, their bodies would still harden under heavy impact.

We wouldn’t be one-shotting them, but we could certainly hurt them.

“Does anyone have a long-range weapon, like a bow, that I can borrow?”

My expertise was with spears, but to tag those slimes with fire, I’d have to jump off the moving train.

I’m in the next car over. I can provide one.
A reply came through immediately, and I secured a bow and a quiver of arrows. Han Sang-ah watched me with a skeptical look.

“You actually know how to use that?”

“Took a PE elective back in college.”

“…That is news to me.”

I brushed off Han Sang-ah’s deadpan expression and tested the tension of the string. It had been quite a long time since I’d drawn a bow.