Return of the Frozen Player

It was a convincing assumption because there was no way that vampires who would turn into ashes under sunlight could evangelize during the day.

“Um, would it be too strange if this church burned down all of a sudden?” Gong Ju-Ha asked carefully.

“Not really. The church can catch fire if a candlestick falls over, and there’s no one to extinguish the flames.”

When Skaya answered Gong Ju-Ha’s question, one of the priests nodded and allowed the vampires to make a move.

“Go ahead and drink up, my brothers and sisters!”

“Blood… blood! Blood!”

“Their necks are mine!”

Dozens of vampires charged in like zombies, but the others didn’t even budge. They had complete faith in Gong Ju-Ha.

Tic. Tic.

Gong Ju-Ha snapped her fingers and said, “It won’t hurt.”

Snap!

Gong Ju-Ha wasn’t lying because she was planning to turn the vampires into mere ashes in the proverbial blink of an eye.

Fwoosh!

A white flame rose like a wave and inundated the church.

“Wow!” Skaya exclaimed, seemingly impressed by the beautiful sight.

People were usually cremated at around a thousand Celsius, but it would still take two hours to turn someone into ashes at those temperatures.

‘But her white flame is…’ Gong Ju-Ha’s white flame was at least seven thousand and five hundred degrees Celsius.

“...”

The vampires didn’t even manage to groan, not to mention scream. Their ashes were soon scattered all over the burning church.

“What, but how…?” the priest who gave the signal earlier was dumbfounded.

‘Is this a dream? Am I dreaming right now?’

It only took about two seconds for the tsunami of fire to get rid of dozens of his fellow clan members. This was something that couldn’t and shouldn’t have happened, according to the priest’s common sense.

“That was so clean!”

“She’s so much better than you, nerd.”

“Hehe.”

Gong Ju-Ha shyly scratched her head upon receiving the praises of the Heroes.

“Oh, no, you don’t. You can’t escape~” Skaya muttered sweetly.

【Bind】

Splat!

A thick rope manifested and quickly tied up the surviving humans and vampires.

“Please, please spare our lives!”

“We’re not vampires! All we did was do as we were told…!”

“Isn’t that worse?” Kim Woo-Joong muttered in a cold voice and knocked them out.

Rahmadat approached the remaining vampire priest.

“Hmm. Torturing him here probably isn’t the best idea, right?”

“The building will collapse in a few seconds. Let’s just go home and do it there.”

“Sounds good.”

The vampire priest glared at them and warned.

“...Do you really think that all of you will be fine after messing with our clan?”

Slap!

Rahmadat knocked out the priest with a slap in the face. Then, he muttered, “There was a mosquito buzzing around.”

***

“...”

The vampire priest slowly opened his eyes. He found himself in a dark and damp place.

‘Am I in a bathroom…?’

Squeak. Squeak.

The vampire priest’s body was tightly bound to an old chair. He could easily tear an ordinary rope apart, but an unknown force was suppressing him.

“It’s a rope developed exclusively for the purpose of torture. You won’t be able to tear it apart, so don’t even try.”

“...”

The vampire priest looked up and identified the speaker sitting on the chair opposite from him. The speaker was a woman, and she was restraining him with a strange power.

There was also a muscular man leaning against a wall.

“Sniff! You… you’re not vampires,” the vampire priest said after sniffing the air.

“Of course not. We are humans.”

“Humans…”

‘How are they so powerful if they are mere humans? For hundreds of years, humans have always been nothing but our prey.’

“Shall we start with an easy question? What’s your name?”

Spat!

The vampire priest spat rather than answering. Humans were nothing but livestock, and he had no intentions of leaking information about the clan to mere livestock.

“Just kill me.”

“...So you want to do this the hard way?” asked Skaya.

“I told you.” Rahmada grabbed both of the priest’s hands.

“Violence is the best way if we want information from people like this guy.”

“...?” the vampire priest was dumbfounded, and he stared at Rahmadat with narrowed eyes. However, before he could even do anything, Rahmadat smashed his fingers, hand, wrist, and arms at the same time.

“Ugh, argh—aaarggghhh!”

The vampire priest’s head trembled. He started drooling from the terrible pain.

The woman opened the exit of the bathroom and clicked her tongue as if she found the vampire priest pitiful. “You should have just answered right away when I was still asking nicely. Anyway, good luck hanging in there~”

‘...Is she leaving? She’s going to leave me alone with this beast?!’

The vampire priest bit his lips. He trembled in fear and started praying. “Our gracious Ghost! Please give courage to your servant! Please bestow upon a strong heart to your servant, so he will not yield in the face of this crisis…!”

“A prayer, huh? That’s very priest-like of you.” Rahmadat grinned. His white teeth seemed like they were illuminating the dark bathroom. Then, he seemed excited as he whispered to the vampire priest. “Wanna bet? Which is stronger—your faith or my fist?”

***

“What’s your name?”

“Heh… heugh…”

“What is this?” Skaya glared at Rahmadat, seemingly disappointed. “You turned him into a complete idiot. What can we even do with him now that he’s in that state?”

“Hm. Give me a second. Let me fix him up a little.”

Tap! Tap!

Rahmadat gave the vampire priest’s back a few taps, and the vampire priest tearfully cried out. “I-I will tell you…! I will tell you everything! No, please let me tell you!”

“Haha! See? You can fix everything out there with just a few taps.”

“...”

Skaya clicked her tongue with a fed-up look before asking, “What’s your name?”

“P-Potra. It’s Potra Penny.”

“All right, Potra. Tell me how many True Vampires are in this city.”

Flinch.

Potra hesitated, even after going through so much torture.

Skaya immediately raised her hand and exclaimed, “Rahmadat! I think he’s broken again. Can you fix him once more?”

“Four! As far as I know, there are a total of four True Vampires in Trium!”

“That’s it! See? You actually know the answer. Why didn’t you answer earlier?”

‘Because I had no idea that you would beat me up earlier…’

Potra smiled awkwardly.

“All right. Then give me the names, characteristics, and abilities of those True Vampires.”

“Ugh…” Potra had already spoken once, so it wasn’t too difficult for him to speak anymore. Potra closed his eyes tightly and started explaining as if he had no other choice but to do so.

“True Vampire Tepes. He is the first True Vampire and also the king of vampires. The other True Vampires aren’t his match.”

“The next one is True Vampire Paradox. He has unknown mysterious abilities.”

“The next one is True Vampire Stigma. He is notorious for his bad temper, and he should be avoided as much as possible.”

“The last one is True Vampire Ghost. He is the head of the clan where I belong, and his abilities involve manipulating space.”

Skaya frowned at Potra’s words.

“You don’t seem to know much about them.”

“T-that’s because it’s rare for True Vampires to make a move,” Potra answered.

“Fair enough.”

It seemed that the four True Vampires were the four leaders of all vampires. Skaya thought it was only natural for them to keep their powers hidden. Skaya nodded and asked another question, “How many vampires are out there?”

“Well… the number of vampires out there is increasing every day, so I’m not sure of the exact number. I think there are at least fifty thousand of us out there.”

“There aren’t as many vampires as I thought…” Skaya remarked.

“Yes. The supply of blood won’t be able to keep up the more vampires there are.”

“Ah, indeed.” Skaya nodded in agreement. It meant that turning everyone into vampires would ultimately destroy the vampire race.

“Those things don’t really matter.” Rahmadat could no longer sit back and watch, so he asked, “Where do we have to go if we want to meet those True Vampires?”

“You don’t have to search for me.”

“...!” Rahmadat and Skaya quickly turned toward the voice.

There was a tall man standing on the bathtub in the corner of the bathroom, which was definitely empty just a few moments ago. The man standing with his hands behind his back was giving off an intimidating aura.

“I am nowhere, but I am also everywhere at the same time.”

“D-dear Ghost!”

Potra was overjoyed upon seeing Ghost. However, his face instantly split into thousands of pieces as if his face had been thrown into a shredder. Potra still had no idea that he was dead because he was still looking at Ghost with joy.

“I don’t need a loose-lipped weakling of a subordinate,” said Ghost with a shrug.

A valuable informant had just died in front of Skaya’s eyes, but she remained unmoving.

‘This is… dangerous. He’ll attack me right away the moment I make a move.’

The thought of a quick retaliation seemed to have frozen Skaya over. The pressure that was coming from Ghost was heavier than the pressure she had to endure when she confronted the demons from the 5.5th Floor.

“Stop thinking too much, nerd. Your overthinking can be a great disadvantage, you know.” Rahmadat stretched his limbs and clenched his fists. “Raising your fist first upon encountering an enemy is what a player should always do before anything else.”

Rahmadat abruptly vanished.

Tandav.

Rahmadat momentarily became light itself as he charged toward Ghost.

“Hmm…” Ghost seemed to be impressed by Rahmadat’s speed. “Unfortunately, you chose the wrong opponent.”

“...!” Skaya’s eyes widened. She covered her mouth with her hand as she stared in disbelief at the headless Rahmadat.

“...Did Tepes get it wrong? They are no ordinary dogs,” muttered Ghost.

Bang!

The bathroom door was flung open as both Gong Ju-Ha and Kim Woo-Joong entered.

“What happened?! I felt a burst of magic—”

Gong Ju-Ha and Kim Woo-Joong immediately attacked upon noticing the enemy.

“White Flame!”

Fwooosh!

Gong Ju-Ha hurled an extremely hot wisp of flame toward Ghost. However, a rift in space appeared and swallowed the flame before it could even come close to Ghost.

Ghost turned toward Kim Woo-Joong. The latter was charging toward him by running along the walls.

“This one is pretty fast as well.” Ghost figured that Kim Woo-Joong’s movement was sharper than the large-framed man earlier.

Ghost casually snapped his fingers. “Here, take it.”

Fwooosh!

Gong Ju-Ha’s White Flame emerged from another rift in space and flew toward Kim Woo-Joong.

Boom!

“S-Sword Saint…!” screamed Gong Ju-Ha.

However, Kim Woo-Joong seemed unscathed as he emerged from the flames.

He quickly swung his sword at Ghost, who was looking in the opposite direction.

Bang!

“Argh!”

Kim Woo-Joong’s sword couldn’t go any further. There wasn’t any visible obstacle blocking his sword from reaching Ghost, but Kim Woo-Joong’s sword couldn’t go any further forward as if a wall was blocking it.

‘I just need an inch—an inch, and I can cut his head off!’

Ghost slowly turned toward Kim Woo-Joong.

“How annoying. Get lost.”

Bang!

An unknown power sent Kim Woo-Joong flying toward the bathroom wall. The wall broke upon impact, and Kim Woo-Joong was sent flying down the hallway.

Fortunately, Skaya was finally done channeling her spells.

【Reverse Gravity】

【Bind】

【Magic Prison】

【Lightning Spear】

“Hmm.”

Ghost looked at his restrained limbs and waved his hand.

Crackle!

Multiple rifts in space manifested, and they swallowed the lightning bolts flying toward him. However, by the time Ghost looked up, the enemies, including the corpse, could no longer be seen.

“She’s fast...”

***

“Huff, huff.”

Skaya levitated the Frost Queen, Rahmadat’s torso and head, and the unconscious Kim Woo-Joong as she ran along the roof.

Gong Ju-Ha running by Skaya’s side shouted, “There!”

Skaya landed on the balcony of a building and quickly hid inside. It turned out that the building was their second hideout.

Cha Si-Eun gathered her magic.

“Please place Mr. Rahmadat on this side first, and place Mr. Sword Saint over there!”

“...I’m fine.”

Rahmadat’s body fumbled around the floor. When he finally found his head, he attached it to the stump between his shoulders. He turned his head a few times to confirm that it was fine.

Rahmadat finally said, “That was one of the True Vampires, huh? He was strong.”

“He’s beyond strong.”

Ghost had overwhelmed all of them on his own. Even though the terrain was unsuitable for a group battle, and the group was caught off guard by Ghost’s sudden appearance, there was no doubt that True Vampires were stronger than they had expected.

‘Shit. I didn’t expect that there would be a monster like that here…’ Skaya couldn’t guarantee their victory if they faced that True Vampire again. She bit her lips hard as she inwardly lamented. ‘There are at least four of them...’

Even worse, the first True Vampire, Tepes, was apparently so strong that the other three True Vampires wouldn’t be able to defeat him, even if they attacked the former at the same time.

‘How the heck are we supposed to clear this Floor, then?’ Skaya shook her head and muttered, “Haaa. Let’s go down for now and come back up after we’re done organizing the information we have gathered so far.”

Unfortunately, there was a huge problem that they had to tackle as a group, and the problem reared its ugly head when they went over to the phone booth and tried to go back down to Earth.

[A member of the party has been infected. Unable to go down as a group.]

The blood of each and every one of them turned cold upon seeing the system prompt.