Chapter 99 :

Episode 22 : The Everlasting Winter (1)

Fighting alongside Alaine and Louis, I prioritized their safety as much as I could since I knew they wouldn't be able to hold on.

As for Mya, I didn't need to worry myself over her since she had HwanGi by her side to protect her.

Alone by themselves which were my comrades, they were holding on by themselves amazingly without any help.

Be that as it may, my comrades still had their limitations, so just in case, I ordered them to support and defend each other as best as they could to ensure one another's safety.

But as of right now, we were in a difficult situation with how the others had started to feel the coldness of this world.

Because of how chilly this world is, many players wouldn't manage to survive the new environment which was why there were a lot of deaths in this world.

Right now, I needed to keep everyone's lives perfectly alive.

"Everyone! Do you remember the fire emblem you got?" I shouted while I was chopping a bear's head with my battle axe.

Louis and Alaine who were close to me, heard me and simultaneously asked. "What about that?!"

"Get it out from your inventory and equip it by saying ‘Fire Emblem Acquired’!"

"What?!" Alaine asked in shock as she was dodging one of the bear's claws.

In spite of his lack of trust for me, Louis oddly believed me and did what I told him to.

He took out his fire emblem and said the following. "Fire emblem acquired!"

What happened next was the light beaming from the fire emblem before it hovered toward Louis's heart, disappearing upon entering his body.

"What the..?! What did that do?!" Louis, being spooked by an item going inside him, grumbled in fear.

At that moment, I was jumping over a group of bears charging at me, I then landed beside Louis and took this chance to ask him. "Do you feel less cold?"

"..I.. I do?"

Getting fazed by not sensing the cold after the fire emblem was equipped within him, he held his chest where his heart was as he could feel the warmth from every heartbeat.

"Focus!" Before I snapped him out of it, I swayed my axe at the bear that was about to harm Louis.

That was when I felt someone coming from the portal before the portal proceeded to shut itself.

"Oh no! Did all the players from the other side get here?!" Alaine gasped, equipping her fire emblem after witnessing the portal disappearing.

I responded to calm her. "No, the portal has split up each guild to different parts of the world."

"Then..we're safe?"

"Yes." I smiled and spoke, seeing a storm of snow advancing from where the portal was.

And I knew who it was that was helping us destroy all these polar bears. It was Frostina running on top of snowflakes she had laid on the air, stepping on them and travelling through a swarm of bears underneath her.

"URK!" The voice of Alaine resounding behind me, got me to turn around and check on what happened to her.

Finding her laying on the snow while surrounded by countless bears, I grasped my battle axe that morphed into two swords.

"Damnit!" Louis getting circled by bears as well, couldn't help Alaine in the process.

While I was observing this sight, I had a question emerging inside my head. ‘Why are there more bears than usual? This is much more than a few hundred. No, this is a thousand.’

‘What the hell is going on?’ Not caring about the questions I had in my mind, I must do something about it instead of standing here and doing nothing.

[You have activated the Skill, ‘Discharge’ Lv. 2.]

"What is this..?" Before I could even begin running, my eyes were caught on a new creature drawing closer to me and me alone.

With a monstrous presence, what stood in front of me was the same yet different apex predator that HwanGi had fought.

A horrendous monster that could end the obstacles ahead of itself as if it was nothing. Gaining the rank of an apex predator within this territory and world with ease.

...It was the ‘Winter’ Bear.

———

In the meantime..

Alaine, struggling to fight off the bears by herself, made a mistake by tripping on one of the dead bears on the ground.

"Gah!"

"Goddamn it.." she grumbled, swiftly getting up before the bears could do anything to her.

But as she was going to get up, one of the bears had already predicted what she was doing. In an instance, it roared, striking its crystal claws at Alaine's back.

"Kyah!! Ackk!" Alaine painfully endured the pain as she perceived herself to be unable to get up because of the wound.

"Not yet!!"

Not dying now, she gripped her daggers firmly, biting her lower lips to tolerate the pain.

[Player ‘999’ has activated the Hidden Skill, ‘Clone’ Lv. 2.]

Summoning her clones before her, she remained slightly safer from the bears' clutches.

While getting up from her spot, the pain on her back inflicted more irresistible harm on her body. As she could feel her blood dripping onto her pants and off her back, Alaine let out a groan.

Eventually, she gritted her teeth to keep herself conscious, discovering Louis was also having trouble with the bears.

"He's also having trouble?!"

Getting fearful by the fact that when her eyes halted itself in JoonChul's direction, she found him who seemed to have encountered a much more dangerous looking bear.

"That bear is large!!"

Spoken in bafflement when her eyes compared the bear in front of JoonChul and the small bears that were fighting her, her body felt chill down her spine from just having a glimpse at the giant bear.

The bear right ahead of JoonChul was unbelievably huge to the point that it was half the same size as the Nature Dragon.

That was the moment where Alaine remembered that it was the same size as the ‘Forest’ bear she saw HwanGi fought before.

"Don't tell me it's one of those bears—"

Letting her guard down, a polar bear jumped in on her, raising its crystal claws and striking them down on her.

"...Crap!"

She cursed as she was trying to dodge, but was only greeted with insane pain from moving her body because of her back wound.

At that moment, Alaine was defenseless against the bear's attack, standing there as she watched another bear descending down on her.

"Do you think I'll let you do that!?!" She yelled at the top of her lungs as she increased her grip on her daggers.

[Player ‘999’ has activated the Skill, ‘Flurry Strike' Lv. 2.]

With a great number of slashes at the bear, Alaine swung and swung her daggers without giving herself a break.

As she thought she was dealing incredible damages to the bear, her result was..

..A bear going up behind Alaine after defeating her clones, had bitten her right arm and ate it as if it was eating a meal.

"AHHHH!!!!"

With an ear-splitting screeching like that, it was no wonder that Louis and everyone in the surroundings had heard it.

"Alaine!" Louis caught a glimpse of Alaine suffering because of the polar bears, rushed in with his five javelins floating above him.

Upset and desperate from what he witnessed, Louis aimed his javelins at the bear that was biting on Alaine, piercing five javelins at the bear's head at the same time.

Because of how he couldn't notice that Alaine was in danger earlier, he was extremely furious and got over to Alaine's side in a matter of moment.

Of course, he punctured his trident at the bears that got in his way, leaping off them to avoid having been stalled by these bears.

"Are you okay?" When he was asking that question to Alaine, he couldn't believe that he asked such a stupid question until he discovered how hard and painful Alaine was doing.

Louis ground his teeth and tightened his grasp on his trident, standing in front of Alaine to defend her. "Drink a potion. I'll protect you in the meantime!"

"..thank you.." Her faint and soft voice was shaking from the agony she had experienced.

After he heard that, his anger arose higher and higher, making him put all his might into killing the bears to protect her.

[Player ‘414’ has activated the Skill, ‘Marine Javelin’ Lv. 2.]

[Player ‘414’ has activated the Hidden Skill, ‘Extraordinary Multitasking’ Lv. 3.]

A hundred times, no, a thousand times, he would control the javelins to slaughter the bears while fighting the bears by himself.

Thanks to his hidden skill, he could focus on commanding the javelins to target other bears as well as switching its target more and more without difficulties.

While doing so, he was concentrating on killing the bears before him, penetrating the polar bears with his trident and yanking it out to inflict more pain to the bears.

Not only that, he was putting his attention onto Alaine as much as possible to keep her safe from any sneak attack from the bears.

Truly, he was multitasking in an inconceivable way just as his Hidden Skill allowed him to, protecting Alaine and himself, along with controlling his javelins while dealing with the bears in his sight.

It was enough to amazed Alaine as she was chugging the potion she was swallowing, dazing from how strong and focused Louis was.

Astounded as she was, Alaine felt a sense of failure as she frowned upon herself. What she thought was what made her slow down at getting up and giving a helping hand to Louis.

‘Again.. I can't be useful.. I'm such a..’

Biting her lips as to show her frustration, she slowly but surely got up while clasping her daggers loosely.

Finally getting healed thanks to the potion, she stood upright as she gripped her daggers tightly.

Upon summoning her clones to help her, like a dagger, she glared at the bears in pure wrath.

‘I'll show everyone that I can handle you!!’

Dashing in without even thinking properly, she vanished in thin air which led to the bears getting stunned by her disappearance.

In the window of opportunity because of how confused the bears were, one of them got itself a decapitation from Alaine reappearing behind it.

Blood of her enemies got on her cheek as she wiped it away from her cheek, giving a gaze of killing intents to the puzzled bears that stood there, bewilderingly watching their own race getting beheaded by Alaine.

[Player ‘999’ has obtained the Skill, ‘Acceleration’ Lv. 1.]

"Amazing..." Louis had watched this sight with his own eyes as he mumbled in pure amazement.