A white palace.
That was the first phrase that surfaced in my mind when I saw it. A palace—one far too mismatched for this cliffside—was clinging to the mountain like a parasite. It wasn’t even completely built; only about half of it had been erected.
The chat window was flooded with a mix of awe and horror, and those expressing horror were primarily the Constellations from Norse mythology.
[CH.#32fas91/Goddess of Beauty and War: Doesn’t it look exactly like Odin’s palace?!]
If what she said was true, then the purpose behind this creation was crystal clear. For someone with enough influence to interfere in dungeon formation to have done this…
[CH.#32fas91/Source of Wind: That cursed wretch—how many times did I say we should’ve torn Loki to pieces?! Why didn’t anyone listen?!]
[CH.#32fas91/Invisible One: Did Odin go blind, thinking of him as a sworn brother or something?!]
[CH.#32fas91/Gatekeeper of Asgard: If only Loki hadn’t existed, none of this would’ve happened.]
[CH.#32fas91/Horseback Herald: Calm down. Loki is imprisoned by Odin right now.]
“What kind of building do you think that is? Who would build something like that on the edge of a cliff?”
Baek Tae-beom asked. It was Lee Myung-won who responded.
“What’s certain is, it wasn’t made with good intentions.”
“That much I figured.”
“Would you make up your mind about whether you’re going to speak formally or not?”
A white path.
Before we knew it, we were walking along a road paved with white marble. Sculptures of three women wailing in agony were carved into the tops of columns, and the appearance of the cliff began to disappear more and more. The only thing welcoming us was the incomplete white palace.
The further we advanced, the stronger the sense of foreboding became. And that ominous feeling grew tenfold when two statues of giants, each shouldering a massive boulder, began to move.
Lee Myung-won and Baek Tae-beom simultaneously stepped in front of me. Baek Tae-beom snarled at Lee Myung-won, but the latter didn’t even flinch.
One of the giants hurled the massive boulder it had been holding straight at us. As it came flying in an arc, Baek Tae-beom swiftly slashed it apart.
Boom!
The shattered rock crashed to the ground, and at the same moment, Lee Myung-won drew his bow. Golden arrows tore through the air with a piercing sound, shooting straight at the giants.
He had aimed directly at their hearts, and the arrows struck true—but the giants kept moving as if nothing had happened.
Baek Tae-beom grimaced.
“So we’ve gotta chop them to pieces, huh?”
Or maybe not. I activated my skill.
[Skill: Eye of the Dead]
[You use the skill: Eye of the Dead]
[Activating Eye of the Dead. The Constellation’s blessing is granted to you.]
[The strengthened Constellation’s blessing now surrounds you. You can see the sound of all things.]
Suddenly, on the statues of the giants with snow-white bodies, I began to see darkened areas. Not on the heart. Not the head. Precisely at the back of the heel.
I mimicked Lee Myung-won, reaching into thin air as if drawing an arrow from the void, and pulled the string of an invisible bow.
[You use the skill: Hand of Sunlight]
[Activating Hand of Sunlight. The Constellation’s blessing is granted to you.]
[The strengthened Constellation’s blessing now surrounds you. It feels as though you could pierce anything.]
And then, in the moment when one of the giants was distracted, swinging its arm wildly at Baek Tae-beom, I shot the arrow into the back of its heel.
Thud.
The giant hit by the arrow collapsed forward. From the spot where the arrow had struck, cracks began to spread, and the statue crumbled completely into dust.
Seeing this, Baek Tae-beom charged at the other giant. With a clean sweep, he sliced off its head. The headless giant flailed blindly, and during its confusion, Lee Myung-won fired an arrow into its heel. That giant, too, staggered several times, walked to the edge of the cliff, and toppled over into the depths below.
Baek Tae-beom ran toward me, beaming with joy. He scooped me up in his arms.
“What are you doing?!”
“Our hyung is way too smart, huh?”
All that time I’d spent agonizing over how to deal with him suddenly felt pointless. Baek Tae-beom was acting nonchalantly, as if telling me not to overthink anything.
He spun around once while holding me up, and Lee Myung-won shook his head at the sight.
But the wave of giants didn’t end there. The farther we moved forward, the more endless they seemed.
As one giant’s arm came crashing down in an attempt to snatch me up, Baek Tae-beom shattered it. Then, to give me a better vantage point, he lifted me onto the back of a headless giant.
Perched atop the staggering statue, I fired arrows. I couldn’t hit the dead center of the heel like Lee Myung-won, but I could at least strike the general area, and that was enough. The number of giants steadily began to decrease.
While Lee Myung-won and I aimed for the heels, Baek Tae-beom tore through the battlefield like a fish in water. No—he looked like he was playing.
Moving faster than the eye could follow, he toyed with the giants, slicing them from heel to thigh in one swift stroke as he dashed between their legs. It was almost absurd.
[CH.#32fas91/One More Dazzling Than the Sun: Honestly, shouldn’t your Contractor have been a Constellation?]
[CH.#32fas91/One More Dazzling Than the Sun: Not some weakling like you.]
[CH.#32fas91/One Who Seeks to Prevent Destruction: Don’t you think, as a fellow human, you should be taking my side here, Apollo?]
[CH.#32fas91/One More Dazzling Than the Sun: I’m a Constellation. I’m not obligated to be human about it.]
Baek Tae-beom set me down from the giant’s back and then finished it off by slicing through its heel.
From the remains of the felled giants, glimmering mana stones could be seen. Lee Myung-won went around collecting them one by one. Watching this, Baek Tae-beom snorted.
“What are you, broke or something? Why so eager to gather those?”
“You may not realize this, Mr. Baek Tae-beom, but our guild is going through a bit of a financial crisis lately… You may not realize this, but we do what we must to make a living… You may not realize this, but—”
“You little shit, are you trying to start something?”
[CH.#32fas91/One Who Weaves Euphoria: If it’s mana stones you want, I can give you as many as you want… So, what do you think, Ga-hyeon? Don’t I seem pretty generous?]
Ignored, cleanly.
[CH.#32fas91/Bloodsoaked Murderer: Even the way you fight is pathetic! How can you call yourself a Constellation like this?!]
[CH.#32fas91/Eyes of the Owl: Pathetic? That’s called wisdom, you buffoon. But I guess a brain full of udon noodles wouldn’t get it.]
[CH.#32fas91/Bloodsoaked Murderer: Udon? Udon noodles? The hell did you just say?]
I really couldn’t tell whether to pity Ares or not.
Having practically torn the giant limb from limb, Baek Tae-beom lightly flicked the blade of his sword—stained with not a drop of blood.
But the giants kept coming. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before Fenrir showed up.
“We should probably keep moving forward.”
“Right, hyung. Hold on tight.”
‘Hold on tight?’
I flinched as Baek Tae-beom effortlessly hoisted me up again. Did this guy seriously see me as a sack of luggage? That had to be the case—how else could he just pick me up like this whenever he pleased?
With me in his arms, Baek Tae-beom bounded up the stairs, Lee Myung-won following behind. The giants pursued, but neither of them looked back.
I loosed an arrow at a giant closing in on us, shattering its eye, and only then did I realize we had entered a majestic-looking garden.
A garden? No, it was more like a labyrinth.
Pursued by the giants, we were naturally forced to split up. The walls forming the maze were easily over five meters tall. We had become trapped in a garden shaped like a rectangle within a maze. Looking up, I saw that the half-completed dome above was painted with a massive depiction of Yggdrasil.
“Mr. Lee Myung-won! Can you hear me?”
I shouted loudly. He seemed to be saying something back from the other side, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Meanwhile, Baek Tae-beom just kept charging forward without hesitation. I was still firing arrows at the giants giving chase, but the way he kept barreling ahead left me speechless.
“What if we get lost in here?!”
“There’s no way we’ll get lost.”
Baek Tae-beom answered confidently, holding me in one arm and raising his sword high in the other. Then, with one swing, he slashed at the wall that stood in our way.
As if it were made of tofu, the wall sliced apart cleanly and collapsed in a heap.
[CH.#32fas91/Bloodsoaked Murderer: Yes, that’s what I’m talking about!]
[CH.#32fas91/Bloodsoaked Murderer: If there’s no path, make one yourself!]
[CH.#32fas91/One Who Guides the Dead: What an unbelievably. Stupid. Method.]
[CH.#32fas91/Bloodsoaked Murderer: Who cares if it’s stupid? As long as you move forward, that’s all that matters!]
[CH.#32fas91/One Who Erases Sin: Ha… ha… Somehow, I don’t think it’s quite that simple!]
Vishnu was right.
The pieces of the wall Baek Tae-beom had just cut through began to rumble and shift, and before long, they returned to their original shape—as if they had never been touched. Not a single trace of the cut remained.
Clicking his tongue, Baek Tae-beom turned sharply around the next corner.
“So what do we do now, hyung?”
“We climb.”
“…Huh?”
“Let’s climb up over this.”
