The Support Ate it All

Before long, a pair of glowing eyes flashed in the darkness.

Then they came closer and closer, finally revealing themselves.

A stag.

Even in a place this cold, it was still a forest, so it made sense that some kind of ecosystem would exist.

But the stag in front of us was frozen solid, wrapped in ice from head to hoof.

There wasn’t a trace of life in it. One of its antlers was half broken, and parts of its body were visibly rotting.

A frozen stag.

Then countless more glowing eyes lit up behind it, and more animals emerged.

Foxes, rabbits, squirrels, monkeys, bears...

Every last one of them was frozen and decayed, just like the stag.

To sum it up—

Frozen woodland friends.

As we faced them in a standoff,

— WHOOOOOSH—

the blizzard suddenly intensified and gathered toward a single point in midair, gradually taking shape.

What formed was the classic image of a witch in a robe and pointed hat.

Instead of coming herself, she had summoned some kind of avatar body.

She glared at us and spoke.

“You insolent little whelps have lost your fear. It was bad enough that you dared set foot on my land, but now you’ve gone and stirred up this kind of racket.”

“Sorry if we woke you up. There are just a lot of really nice trees here. We’ll only borrow a few.”

At that, the blizzard witch let out an incredulous laugh.

“You think things will go that conveniently for you?”

“So that’s a no?”

“You’ll have to pay an appropriate price first. From the look of it, you freed the lumberjack without permission as well. That must be included too.”

So she knew the lumberjack golem had been trapped inside the ice mound.

Judging from the circumstances, she’d probably been the one who froze it there.

— CRACK, CRACK.

— CRACK, CRACK.

I pointed at the thing, which was still doing nothing but chopping wood.

“As you can see, that guy’s excellent at his job. Very passionate. He’s too talented to stay frozen forever.”

“......”

“So I’d like to borrow him for a while. What’s this ‘appropriate price’ supposed to be?”

“You may serve me for a time, together with the children here.”

The blizzard witch gestured toward the frozen woodland friends.

In simple terms, she meant she wanted to turn us into Frozen Kim Ho and Frozen Hong Yeonhwa.

And people had very different standards for what counted as “for a time.”

For some, that could mean a few days or weeks.

For others, it could mean decades.

It was a condition I had no intention of accepting, so I was just about to offer a polite refusal—

when Hong Yeonhwa cut into the conversation and asked,

“But who says it’s your land?”

“...What?”

“It looks like it was just a forest originally. Didn’t you come here later too?”

“...You’re a bold child. Judging by the fire energy I sense from you, you must be from Ruby.”

“That’s not what matters right now. Answer the question.”

Hong Yeonhwa pressed her point with clean logic.

I’d noticed this whenever she bickered with Song Cheonhye, but she really did have a talent for stabbing right where it hurt.

The blizzard witch seemed momentarily speechless. After a brief silence, she gave a dry laugh and spoke.

“...Very well. I seized this land. With magic, and with ice. For a long time, no human dared even come near it, much less challenge me. And yet today, I receive that challenge.”

“That’s about right.”

“We’ll see whether your skill is enough to justify such boldness.”

— FSSSHHHK!

An ice spear flew at us before she had even finished speaking.

Dirty move. She’d been chanting in secret and launched a surprise attack.

I stepped in to knock it aside, but then realized I didn’t need to.

Hong Yeonhwa’s casting finished in the blink of an eye, and a flaming arrow shot out to meet the ice spear head-on.

— BOOOOM!

Fire and ice exploded together in midair.

That was the signal that kicked off the battle, and the frozen woodland friends came swarming in from every direction.

Most of them rushed at us.

Some of them rushed the lumberjack golem.

— CRACK, CRACK.

But whether that was happening or not, the golem remained focused solely on chopping wood.

It didn’t show the slightest sign of fighting back.

As expected, protecting it was going to be our job.

— BOOM!

Compressed air exploded, and a frozen monkey that had been leaping down from the branches went flying far off.

I kept casting [Wind Force] and shoving enemies away as I asked,

“Should I just support for now?”

“Yeah. I want to try doing it alone.”

Hong Yeonhwa answered with confidence.

When she swept her staff, the ruby glowed red.

Then several magic circles formed in the air, and fist-sized fireballs poured down like rain.

— BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

The frozen animals charging at us got caught in the barrage and burned away on the spot.

I asked, genuinely intrigued,

“That looks awfully familiar.”

“Yeah... I learned it from someone I know... then changed it a little... made it my own.”

Looks like she’d gained some insight from sparring with Hong Hyeona in the inner world and used that as a basis to develop a new fire spell.

Up to now, most of her magic circles had been drawn on the ground, but it seemed she’d gotten quite good at suspending them in midair too.

I slowly nodded.

“You really can handle things on your own.”

“Thanks...! But I really couldn’t have done it alone like this.”

Hong Yeonhwa answered with a proud expression.

Then she focused on the battlefield again and continued.

“I’ve got a few more things too... I’ll show you.”

“Sure. Just don’t get so focused on that that you miss what’s around you.”

“Okay...!”

— BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

Under the relentless downpour of fireballs, the frozen woodland friends melted away almost as fast as they came.

The blizzard witch spoke.

“...You use unusual fire. To think my children would falter this badly. In that case—”

She seemed to have vaguely picked up on the existence of [Aqua Flame].

And apparently, she had a response prepared.

Like an experienced conductor, she waved a hand, and the blizzard blew even harder.

— WOOOOOO—

Then a thin layer formed over the frozen animals.

Some kind of [Armor]-type skill, apparently.

— BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

The fireballs rained down again, and the frozen wolf and stag at the front were engulfed in flames.

But instead of melting like before, they charged even faster.

Just before Hong Yeonhwa could be bitten by fangs and skewered by antlers—

— FLASH.

She vanished from that spot as if she had blinked out of existence, then reappeared right beside me.

Looks like she’d anticipated exactly this outcome and prepared ★Blink★ in advance.

And that wasn’t all she had prepared.

Pillars of fire erupted beneath the wolf’s and stag’s feet.

— FWHOOOOOOOSH!

Even with their ice-type armor, they couldn’t withstand that.

The two of them were erased on the spot, and Hong Yeonhwa chained one spell after another without pause.

[Pyro-Fusion]

The scattered embers throughout the battlefield fused together, triggering secondary explosions and sending pillars of flame roaring upward.

— BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

And from inside those fire pillars, serpents with multiple heads rose and lifted their heads.

She’d summoned a Hydra now too.

They began indiscriminately spitting fireballs and blasting flames in all directions.

— FWOOOOOSH!

She’s really doing this all by herself.

All I’d done was knock away the ones heading for the lumberjack and cover Hong Yeonhwa once or twice.

While dozens of Hydras were swallowing up the battlefield, the army of frozen woodland friends was rapidly shrinking.

Their annihilation wasn’t far off, so I casually tossed a comment to the blizzard witch.

“How about we call it a draw here and make peace?”

“A draw? Somehow, I doubt that is what you truly mean.”

“I’m just saying we should keep things friendly. It’s not like we’re going to rip up the whole forest. We just need to dig out a few trees and we’re done.”

Not more, not less.

Let us fill up the experience on [Greedy Choice], and we’ll be on our way.

At that, the blizzard witch laughed as if I were ridiculous.

“You’ve grown arrogant over a tiny victory. This force is but a fraction of what I command.”

“No way! So you’re going to bring your real body and all your troops next time to teach us a lesson?”

“I do not yet feel the need to go that far. Even so, we shall meet again soon.”

After delivering that thoroughly cliché line, she dispersed into the blizzard just as she had when she appeared.

*****

We’d already clashed once, which meant there probably wouldn’t be another fight for a while.

So we guided the lumberjack golem around in peace and kept scooping up high-grade wood wherever we could.

Only after the giant cart it was hauling had been filled to the brim did we finally return to the cabin.

— CRACK, CRACK!

While the lumberjack busily split logs into usable lumber, we rested on our side.

After filling our stomachs with the snacks we’d brought beforehand, we sat side by side in front of the fire with a blanket over us.

“......”

Hong Yeonhwa kept sneaking glances at me from the corner of her eye.

Looking closer, her gaze seemed to keep drifting toward my shoulder.

So I said casually,

“You don’t have to be self-conscious. We already shared a bed.”

“...Okay.”

She flinched for a second, caught, then slowly rested her head against my shoulder.

We talked about ordinary things for a while in that position, and eventually the topic shifted to the next PvP week.

More specifically, the trip to Hyeseong New City under the pretense of an outside request.

“What about you? Do you want to go?”

“I do want to, but...”

“But?”

Hong Yeonhwa hesitated for a while before answering.

“This time... I think I won’t.”

“I’ve said this over and over, but you don’t need to worry about that. If you want to go, just say so honestly.”

“It’s not that...”

Hong Yeonhwa fidgeted again.

It looked like she was trying to find the right words, so I waited.

A moment later, she spoke.

“You said... you were going to see Meteor Dragon too, right?”

“I did.”

“I heard it has something to do with Seo Ye-in, so... it feels like it’s going to be a really important meeting...”

“So you feel like you shouldn’t intrude?”

“Mm-hm...”

Personally, I thought that the more important something was, the more you ought to show your face.

If I wanted world peace and the dreams of a greedy bastard, I needed to be shameless.

Of course, different people thought differently, and most people would take a step back in a situation like this.

So, as a sign that I respected her choice, I slowly nodded.

Then Hong Yeonhwa added,

“And since you’re going... I thought maybe it’d be nice if the two of you could have a good time together.”

“So you’re being considerate.”

“Yeah. This time I’ll stay here instead of tagging along. But instead...”

“Instead?”

Hong Yeonhwa looked away a little and spoke with obvious embarrassment.

“Sometimes... with me too... just the two of us...?”

“Of course.”

When I grinned and kissed her on the cheek, Hong Yeonhwa’s face turned bright red in an instant.

Seeing that made me even more playful, so I lightly bit her shoulder too.

Hong Yeonhwa jerked in surprise right away.

Her eyes went round as she stared at me.

“...!?”

“You kept biting me, so I tried biting back the other day. It’s kind of fun.”

“Ah...”

“Want me to do that for you too?”

At that question, Hong Yeonhwa seemed to think for a moment, then answered shyly,

“I... rather than that...”

“Rather than that?”

“I like... softer, gentler things.”

“So you know exactly what you like.”

Then I should give you exactly what you want.

I leaned in and kissed her on the forehead.

Then I tilted the corner of {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} my mouth up and asked,

“Like this?”

“...Yeah.”

Hong Yeonhwa ducked her head.

Her face was even redder than before.

For a while, the only sound inside the cabin was the crackling of the fire.