The Support Ate it All

Hong Yeonhwa kept casting fire magic, melting the snowy path.

WHOOSH.

Even so, she showed no sign of letting go of our joined hands. Not while we led the lumberjack golem, and not while we stood watching it chop wood.

“......”

Hong Yeonhwa kept grinning to herself.

Then, maybe deciding she shouldn’t look too silly, she went, “Hm!” and tried to compose herself, putting force into her eyes and straightening her expression.

But she never managed to keep it up for long before she started smiling all over again.

And every so often, she stole glances at me or asked carefully,

“Does it... bother you?”

“Not really. It’s warm, and it feels nice.”

“Yeah...?”

“Yeah. What about you?”

“I... like it too.”

With relief and happiness mixed together on her face, Hong Yeonhwa went right back to smiling.

Still, even pleasant moments eventually came to an end.

From somewhere beyond the darkness, shrill cries rang out.

HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE!

SKREEEE—

Just like before, it meant the enemies were closing in.

The difference was that there were incomparably more of them this time.

I recalled the last thing Blizzard Witch had said to me.

She said she’d come in person.

So of course she would have brought all her frozen friends with her too.

SKRIT! SKREEK! SKRIT!

HEEEEEE—

The shrieks echoed from every direction like a hideous chorus.

It sounded like standing in the middle of a stadium while the crowd screamed around you.

The noise grew louder and louder until my ears felt numb, and gleaming eyes flashed everywhere in the dark.

The first things to appear were, unsurprisingly, the frozen woodland friends.

But unlike before, there wasn’t a single small, weak one like a squirrel or rabbit among them. Every last one was large—deer, bears, wolves.

And scattered among them were things that had once been human. Some wore leather like hunters, while others had armor on as if to say, Yep, I’m a soldier.

They’d probably stepped into the forest for one reason or another, only to end up in the category of serving the witch for the time being.

WHOOOOOO—

Then the blizzard came roaring in, carrying a cold so sharp it stung.

The road we had been melting as we walked cracked and froze over again.

And along that road, the witch finally showed herself.

Not a blizzard-made avatar this time, but the real body.

She’s definitely alive, but...

Her skin was as pale as any of the frozen woodland friends. Set into the staff in her hand was a sapphire the size of a fist, but it had grown so murky and discolored that it looked almost black-blue.

At last, the witch faced us and spoke.

“I have come in person, as you wished. How does it feel?”

“It’s nice seeing you up close.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I told you already. Those little clone hit-and-runs were getting on my nerves. If they’d been strong, maybe it would’ve been different, but they were weak on top of being annoying.”

“......”

The witch’s corpse-pale face twitched.

Barely suppressing her anger, she spat the words out.

“Truly, your tongue is as smooth as ever. I will freeze you and keep you by my side, and make you chatter all day long.”

“You’ll have to win first to do that, won’t you?”

“Of course. Now that I am here, it is already decided.”

“We’ll see about that.”

CRACK. CRUNCH.

While the idiot lumberjack golem, a fool who knew only woodcutting, kept diligently swinging its axe, we faced our opponent in full combat readiness.

The witch, too, prepared to cast spells and direct the ice-bound creatures—

Then her eyes flicked with interest again as she asked,

“You intend to fight like that?”

Because we were still holding hands.

Hong Yeonhwa immediately furrowed her brow, about to snap back at her.

Judging by the look on her face, it was probably something like—

—Who are you to tell us whether to let go or not?

—Are you trying to split us up?

But at the last second, she must have grabbed hold of the thread of reason, because she closed her mouth again.

Then she slowly loosened her grip on my hand.

With obvious reluctance.

So I said to her lightly,

“Want to finish this fast and hold hands again afterward?”

“...Yeah!”

Once the fight was over, we’d be able to go back to peacefully gathering wood. At that point, whether we held hands or kissed or whatever else, we could do as we pleased.

WHOOSH!

Hong Yeonhwa’s fighting spirit flared to life.

At the sheer transparency of her ulterior motive, Blizzard Witch looked momentarily dumbfounded.

Then she swung her staff and gave the order.

“Kill them.”

HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE!

SKREEEEK—!

The legion of frozen friends—numbering in the hundreds, the thousands—surged toward us all at once.

Guess it’s time for me to fight too.

Up until now, I’d stayed a step back and given only minimal support so Hong Yeonhwa could work on her rank-up and build real combat experience.

But this was unquestionably a boss fight, and on top of that we’d used both [Book of Chaos] and [Orb of Bitter Cold].

If I kept taking it easy, there was a real chance we’d get burned.

So I used my skills.

[You use [Octopus Arms].]

[You use [Amplification].]

[[Wind Force]’s rank increases. (A+→S+)]

[[Spiral Explosion]’s rank increases. (A+→S+)]

[[Move Command]’s rank increases. (C→A)]

[[Ice Wall]’s rank increases. (B→S)]

.......

BOOM!

Compressed air exploded, and the frozen woodland friends—including frozen deer and frozen hunters—went flying in a heap.

One side of the encirclement tangled into chaos, and I immediately fired off [Wind Force] in other directions as well.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Then, after securing a safe distance, I swept the crow tree again.

[Octopus Arms]

[Ice Wall]

RUMBLE!

Thick walls of ice shot up around us like barricades.

Even with the frozen friends pounding on them from all sides, there was no sign of them breaking any time soon.

Well, I had boosted it all the way to S-rank.

Sure, it would melt fast if it got hit by [Aqua Flame], but the point was only to stall.

Until Hong Yeonhwa finished her magic.

WHOOSH!

Flames erupted everywhere, and red magic circles etched themselves into the air.

A moment later, fireballs began pouring down across the battlefield like a rainstorm.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

Just as expected, the ice walls melted almost instantly.

Along with the frozen friends that had been pounding on them.

The ones behind them closed the encirclement again—

WHOOOOOO—

—but then enormous whirlwinds sprang up here and there.

A linkage between [Octopus Arms] and [Spiral Explosion].

And beneath the feet of the enemies, now gathered together so neatly, pillars of fire erupted.

WHOOOOSH!

There were simply too many of them, though.

A few of the creatures, wreathed in flame, tore free of the whirlwinds and lunged straight for us anyway.

A frozen wolf leaped with its jaws wide open.

“GRAAAARRR!”

Just as it was about to sink its teeth into Hong Yeonhwa, I stepped in and kicked it square in the snout.

“She said she doesn’t like getting bitten.”

She said she preferred things soft and gentle.

Hong Yeonhwa shyly nodded in agreement, but kept chanting without pause.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Fireballs rained down without end, and hydras lifted their heads within the columns of flame.

Then the flames compressed, took on the shape of eggs, and from inside them Burning Chicks hatched.

I watched, satisfied.

So she’s going for area attacks and long-fight specialization.

That was why Hong Hyeona, the Ruby Mage Tower master, had been one of my go-to picks.

Even if her one-on-one combat power lagged behind the other heroes, she excelled at locking down space and making it easier for allies to move.

And the longer a fight went on, the stronger she herself became.

Hong Yeonhwa was the same way, but—

Her warm-up speed is on a completely different level.

She boasted absurd casting speed, so the rate at which her magic layered and overlapped was equally absurd.

That meant she could drag forward the point most people would call a long battle.

WHOOSH!

Before long, the battlefield was packed with roaring flames and hydras.

There were already two Burning Chicks summoned as well.

Blizzard Witch wasn’t exactly standing idle, but every time she used freezing magic, Hong Yeonhwa answered immediately, so she couldn’t get any real momentum going.

The same was true even now.

Toward the hail of falling ice masses, the flaming chicks fluttered up.

The whole area flashed hot, and everything evaporated on the spot.

Seeing the witch’s eyes widen, I offered her a casual remark.

“You’ll need to try harder if you want to turn us into your chat dolls.”

“...!”

“Or you could listen {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} closely while you still can. What should we talk about first?”

“Shut up—!”

Blizzard Witch thrust out her staff with a furious scream.

Cracks spread across the clouded sapphire. She was willing to pay the price, whatever it took, if it meant securing victory.

WHOOOOOO—

The blizzard, which had gradually been losing force, suddenly intensified with explosive violence.

And along with it came the alert messages.

[[Blizzard Mark] is imprinted.]

[The battlefield’s freezing effect is concentrated.]

Hong Yeonhwa flicked her gaze at the air for a second, apparently checking her own alert.

The lumberjack golem likely had the same thing on it, even if it didn’t react.

A straight power struggle wasn’t working for her.

The flames already covered the battlefield, and [Aqua Flame] was layered on top of that.

From the witch’s perspective, pushing it all back was close to impossible.

So she was going to single out the three of us instead.

If Hong Yeonhwa, the caster, got neutralized, the flames would naturally die down with her.

WHOOOOOO—

The blizzard then concentrated on the three of us.

Ice seized the lumberjack golem’s feet, then climbed upward in an instant and covered its whole body.

Just like when we first met it, the thing ended up trapped inside a hill of ice.

Blizzard Witch curled her lips into a smile.

“You will be like that soon enough.”

WHOOO—

“You hold out reasonably well. But how long will that last?”

WHOOOO—

“...?”

WHOOOOOO—

The blizzard kept focusing on us, yet all we did was keep killing frozen woodland friends like before.

On top of that, Hong Yeonhwa had summoned even more Burning Chicks, and the ones she’d summoned earlier had grown so large they were closer to phoenixes now.

Confusion spread across the witch’s face.

“Why... why are you not freezing?”

“Well, I can see why you wouldn’t know.”

That we had S-rank [Elemental Resistance].

Since it was a mark-type skill, if it had been just a little stronger, it might’ve broken through.

But C+-rank wasn’t enough.

As if refusing to accept reality, the witch cried out,

“This cannot be...! Such a thing cannot be!”

She whirled as though to flee, but I used ★Blink★ and instantly kept pace at her side.

Then I threw out a line dripping with swagger.

“Allow me to show you what true freezing looks like.”

[Diamond Freeze]

[Mystic Sound Frost-White Jade Demon Finger]

A line of cold shot out from my index finger, then exploded the moment it touched the target.

BOOM!

The next instant, the witch’s entire body was locked in ice.

Forget escaping—she couldn’t even twitch.

And yet, if anything, her expression was contemptuous.

After all, we had dared challenge a master of freezing magic with ice.

“This little—”

But she stopped mid-sentence, right before saying that this much ice was nothing.

Because, contrary to her expectations, the freezing effect didn’t come undone.

Tilting my head, I asked,

“This little what?”

“Th-this... why...?”

“Why isn’t it coming off, hmm? Why could that be~?”

“You...!”

But before the witch could fully vent her fury, Hong Yeonhwa launched her follow-up attack.

“No time.”

Apparently her head was already full of ending this quickly so we could go back to quietly walking around hand in hand.

As she swept her staff like a commander, the phoenixes and Burning Chicks all flew at the witch in unison.

[Phoenix Flock]

WHOOOOOOOSH!