The Support Ate it All

The trees had already been blocking out most of the sky, so very little light had been getting in to begin with, but now that I’d used the [Book of Chaos], it felt like night had fallen outright.

This state would probably last the entire run, and the dungeon’s contents were bound to change too.

I kind of want to tear out one more page while I’m at it.

Like I had when I used two pages each in and .

But being greedy wasn’t going to do me any favors.

Back then, I could handle it, so I did.

The former had only been D-rank, so I’d bulldozed through it with amplified Inferno Fist, and the latter had been C-rank, but with a five-person raid party.

This time it was C+, and there were only two of us, Hong Yeonhwa and me. Boosting it a reasonable amount and stopping there was the smart play.

Besides, the difficulty goes up with other stuff too.

Right on cue, Hong Yeonhwa pulled out one of those “other things”: the [Orb of Bitter Cold].

Even whiter frost flowed out of the white sphere.

When she raised it high,

[You use the ‘Orb of Bitter Cold’.]

— WHOOOOOSH—

The wind immediately grew fiercer, and snow started scattering through the air.

Any ice-attribute enemies lurking somewhere in here had probably been strengthened too.

Maybe it wasn’t at the level of using two pages from the [Book of Chaos], but it had gotten pretty close.

“Then shall we go?”

“Yeah...!”

When I started forward, Hong Yeonhwa hurried after me.

Once we got close enough to inspect the cabin properly, I saw that it wasn’t just buried in thick snow. It was covered top to bottom in ice.

The door, too, wasn’t merely frozen shut. It was locked in ice solid enough to look welded closed.

But what if you have Hong Yeonhwa, the human portable lighter?

— FWOOSH.

Hong Yeonhwa immediately cast fire magic.

A large fireball rose into the air, radiating heat.

The ice melted away and evaporated almost instantly, and the door that hadn’t budged at all opened as easily as a lie.

The first thing I thought when we stepped inside was:

This place has been abandoned for a long time.

Wooden furniture—a table, chairs, a bed—had all been left strewn around haphazardly.

Books that looked like magic tomes, magazines, and all kinds of trash were scattered across the floor and furniture.

It looked like the owner had run out of the cabin in a hurry for some urgent reason and never come back.

After taking in the room slowly, Hong Yeonhwa asked,

“We’re resting here...?”

“We are.”

I’d told Shin Byeongcheol the clear would take about a day, but considering how differently time could pass inside a dungeon, it would probably take a bit longer than that.

If we wanted to move efficiently during that time, we’d need to rest whenever we could. And using the cabin was obviously a lot better than pitching a tent outside.

Hong Yeonhwa had already known that from the walkthrough, but I’d still expected her to look at least a little uncomfortable.

Instead, she looked around again with shining eyes.

“I think if we clean it up just a little, it’ll be fine.”

“Looks like you kind of like it.”

“The atmosphere is nice. And...”

Hong Yeonhwa fidgeted for a moment, hesitating before continuing in a small voice.

“More than the place... I think it matters more who I’m with.”

“That’s true too. Want to clean it up together?”

“Yeah...!”

We couldn’t afford to waste too much time, so we went with the simplest possible method.

Leave only the few things we actually needed and shove everything else out.

The place that had looked like a pigsty turned into something people could actually live in before long, and Hong Yeonhwa looked around with eyes twice as satisfied as before.

— FWOOSH.

Once we lit the stove as well, securing the base was basically done.

We decided to rest later, then started the real dungeon clear.

The main rule here is [Escort].

Escort who?

We were about to go meet them.

When we stepped out of the cabin and went around to the back, a wide clearing came into view.

Just as the word “lumberjack” suggested, it was a place for chopping wood and stacking lumber.

The problem was that the entire clearing was frozen even more solidly than the cabin had been.

Huge masses of ice taller than a person and little hills of ice stood everywhere.

They were so thick you couldn’t even tell what was trapped inside them.

I reflexively turned to Hong Yeonhwa.

“You’re the only one I can count on.”

“Yeah...!”

Maybe she was happy even hearing that as empty flattery, because she grinned and started chanting a spell.

As she swept her staff out wide, a long trail of fire rose along its path.

— FWOOOOOOSH—

For a moment, it looked like the entire clearing was wavering, and then all the ice began melting at once.

First, the ground that had looked like a skating rink turned damp, then soft, then into hard-packed dirt.

Next, one of the giant ice masses evaporated, revealing an axe.

Its size was absurd. The handle alone was as thick and long as if someone had ripped out a building pillar and brought it here.

As for the blade, you’d have to spread both your arms wide just to barely wrap around it.

— FWOOOOOOSH—

What emerged next was an equally gigantic cart.

Its structure was simple enough to look like something one person would drag around casually, but the thing was the size of a carriage.

That alone told me just how massive this so-called lumberjack had to be.

— FWOOOOOOSH—

Meanwhile, the flames only grew fiercer, and most of the ice had already disappeared.

Only two ice hills remained.

They were so enormous they took longer to melt.

Hong Yeonhwa drew back the flames she’d spread broadly and concentrated them on those two spots.

— FWOOOOOOSH—

The smaller one melted first, revealing what had been inside.

At first glance it looked like several logs carved and bundled together, but then it shuddered and rose to its feet.

Its true form was a wooden golem as tall and bulky as an ogre.

— THUD.

When it took a step, the whole area shook, and the snow piled on the nearby trees came cascading down.

— THUD.

It looked like it was about to take another step, but then it turned its head and stared straight at me.

And without warning, it threw a punch.

— WHOOOM!

“Well, this is some gratitude.”

I went to all the trouble of getting you out, and this is how you repay me?

Letting out a sigh, I held my staff forward.

And the instant that massive wooden fist touched the tip—

[Ehwajupmok.]

I redirected the force cleanly to the side.

The golem’s center of gravity broke. It staggered, then toppled flat onto the ground.

— BOOM!

But it got right back up and threw another punch without caring in the slightest.

Seeing that, Hong Yeonhwa asked,

“Are you okay...?”

“Yeah. Keep doing what you were doing.”

— BOOM!

Like some secluded master subduing thugs with a pair of chopsticks, I casually flicked the Crow Tree around and sent the golem sprawling over and over.

By the time that was happening, the second ice hill had melted completely too, and its contents were revealed.

A neatly stacked pile of logs.

— ....

The wooden golem stopped dead, its fist half-raised.

Then, as if I had never existed in the first place, it ignored me and walked over to the pile of logs.

It moved one aside, grabbed the giant axe, and started chopping it into firewood.

— CRACK! CRACK!

The lumberjack.

A golem created to secure timber from this area.

Its maker—and the owner of the cabin—had left the place indefinitely, so it had been abandoned. At some point it had even ended up trapped in ice.

Now we had freed it, and it was going back to work.

— CRACK!

It didn’t take long for one log to be turned into firewood.

The golem stacked the split wood in one corner, then dragged over the next log and chopped that, then the next one after that.

— CRACK! CRACK!

Watching that, we walked over to the pile of firewood.

Then, after examining it carefully, I spotted a few pieces here and there that had been judged as items.

[Elastic Mahogany Wood(C)]

[Pale Acacia Wood(C+)] x2

Pointing at them, I asked the golem,

“You don’t mind if I take these, right?”

— CRACK, CRACK!

“Thanks. I’ll make good use of them.”

— CRACK, CRACK!

Whether I stuffed the wood into my inventory or not, the lumberjack golem remained silently focused on swinging its axe.

Unfortunately, it seemed its creator hadn’t cared much about security.

That’s why this is a material dungeon.

A place where you could secure a large amount of high-quality lumber.

The disappointing part was how inefficient it was.

Every time it split a log, a whole pile of firewood came out, but among that pile, maybe one or two pieces at most would count as item-grade timber.

— CRACK!

Another problem was that even those logs were used up before long.

So the lumberjack golem moved on to its next action.

With the giant axe slung over its shoulder and the giant cart in tow, it started walking into the snow-covered forest.

Going to get more.

When it came to gathering lumber, it was fully automated from start to finish.

So we immediately hurried up alongside it.

If we left it alone, it would obviously gather wood on its own, but—

—that would tank the efficiency.

The thing wasn’t smart enough to tell what counted as “good wood,” meaning high-rank material.

If it saw something thick enough, it just started chopping.

We, on the other hand, had to secure as much high-grade lumber as possible within the time limit.

So we need to steer it.

— FWOOOOOOSH.

When Hong Yeonhwa chanted another spell, flames rose and the snow in front of us evaporated.

The lumberjack golem immediately snapped its body that way and dragged the cart toward the cleared ground.

It had been designed to move in whatever direction put the least burden on it.

Naturally, dry ground was easier to move across than snow-slick, slushy earth.

— FWOOOOOOSH.

Hong Yeonhwa kept opening the path, and I scanned the surroundings, comparing what I saw against my veteran-player big data.

“There, I think.”

“Yeah...!”

— FWOOOOOOSH!

Following the route we guided it along, the golem soon stopped in front of a thick ancient tree.

Its color alone was different from the surrounding trees, which meant the processed material would probably be superior too.

Like an experienced lumberjack, it started swinging the giant axe with practiced precision.

— CRACK, CRACK!

After several chops, the tree slowly tilted to one side and then crashed to the ground with a tremendous noise.

— KABOOOM!

Then it skillfully chopped it down into pieces small enough to fit into the cart.

After that, it loaded them up and moved toward the next target.

We kept guiding it with full use of my big data.

It was around the time we secured the third log.

— SKREEEE—

— KIHIHIHIHIT!

From deep within the darkness beyond the snowstorm, a sound rang out that could have been either a scream or laughter.

About time.

Whoever was living in this forest was never going to appreciate us running around logging it bare.

They probably hadn’t liked us trespassing here in the first place.

And finding us would be easy.

We’d been causing a steady racket the whole time in a place this quiet.

They could probably estimate our position from the sound alone.

On top of that, we’d been melting the ground as we moved, leaving our route fully exposed.

Obviously, the moment they show up, it’s a fight.

And if the lumberjack golem got destroyed in the process, that would interfere with the logging too, so we needed to protect it as much as possible.

That was why the main rule was [Escort].

— KIHIHIHI!

— SKREEEE!

The shrill cries came from closer now.

Most people would have felt some instinctive revulsion or unease, but Hong Yeonhwa didn’t seem affected in the slightest.

If anything, she stepped forward with even more fighting spirit.

“Come on, then.”

— FWOOOOOOSH!

As if reflecting her state of mind, the flames blazed even more fiercely.

At that moment, Hong Yeonhwa looked like she had nothing to fear.