Episode 111
111:Delivery of a Disciple
“Blocking it… you say? What’s inside?”
golden hand didn’t understand.
There weren’t any major incidents in the northern region during this period.
So he had asked bluntly, which seemed to have hit a nerve with Ma Jincheol.
“See, see, you don’t know anything. Undead! And some real nasty ones at that. The entire city’s been taken over by them.”
“Undead? Why would they be in the north…?”
Prellia was a trading city in the north.
While monster invasions were frequent, it wasn’t a place so lax that the entire city could be occupied.
Especially not by undead like zombies or walking skeletons.
But one thing was certain.
The bitter cold of the north.
A curse to the living, a blessing to the dead.
The corpses of the dead would not rot, and they wouldn’t even feel the pain of the cold.
On the contrary, the chill would harden their flesh, undoubtedly becoming a natural fortress that repelled the living.
“They’re not ordinary undead. They’re undead commanded by a very powerful witch.”
“A witch? Not a mage?”
“Yes! A witch! It’s so cold, but she wanders around in a black dress, not even wearing a robe!”
“She can wear unusual clothes, but calling her a witch just for that is a bit…”
“Ugh! You wouldn’t say that if you saw the legion of undead moving at her slightest gesture! Ugh, just thinking about it makes me dizzy.”
Ma Jincheol trembled, remembering that ‘witch’.
His expression suggested he didn’t even want to recall it.
However, Geumson couldn’t just dismiss Jincheol’s words.
A witch in a black dress.
And undead.
A being came to mind.
‘No way… the Witch of the West?’
A boss-level entity not yet known in ‘Lepione’.
But golden hand knew.
He knew why she was so notorious, why players shuddered at her name alone.
‘She turned players into undead.’
It wasn’t a simple status ailment.
The moment a player became undead by her black magic, they permanently lost control of their character.
They could log in but could not operate, forced to watch in an unsolvable curse.
The problem was ‘Lepione’ system.
One person, one character.
Due to this harsh rule of only one character per account, there was only one way to escape the undead state.
‘Character deletion. That’s the only answer.’
All the time, effort, hard-earned items and gold, and accumulated levels.
Everything had to be abandoned to start over from the beginning.
It was literally a ‘reset’.
One skilled player disappears, and a level 1 beginner character takes their place.
In other words, the reset of players meant a qualitative decline in humanity’s overall combat power.
‘Our combat power is already lacking… If high-level players get cut down, there’s no future.’
In the age of destruction, if combat power leaked away like this during those desperate moments when even a single top-ranked player was precious?
It was nothing short of a shortcut to hastening destruction.
Therefore, the Witch of the West was a calamity that must be avoided—no, that must be eliminated.
‘But… why is the Witch of the West here? This is the north.’
As Geumson pondered, a hypothesis formed in his mind.
The Witch of the West had tried to make northern Frellia her base.
But she was stopped by someone and driven west.
‘If the same thing happened in the past, then Mr. Jincheol probably blocked her back then too… and the finishing blow was likely dealt by the Crown Prince!’
Crown Prince Bellian.
The fact that he gave Geumson a quest meant the royal family was also monitoring this situation.
In his past life, without golden hands, the Crown Prince would have personally taken action to subdue and drive out the witch.
‘The witch, driven out by the Crown Prince… began wandering the west?’
The rough situation began to take shape.
It was just conjecture, but a likely one.
Moreover, in this life, the situation had changed a bit because of him.
‘The Airtos defense battle, which wasn’t part of the original timeline.’
While Golden Hand was blocking the monster wave in Airtos, the witch had been building her forces in the north.
If Ma Jincheol hadn’t blocked her, hordes of undead would have poured out, throwing the entire north into chaos.
Especially with the Airtos defense battle underway, what if the north had been breached as well?
They might have had to face undead during the Airtos defense battle.
‘The one secretly blocking the undead… was Mr. Jincheol.’
He was the unsung hero of the Airtos defense battle.
In a place where no one recognized him, he alone was silently preventing the worst-case scenario.
Having grasped the situation, Geumson stared intently at his own left hand.
The skill ‘Lunar Earth’ acquired with the Moon’s Left Hand.
This skill, allowing the use of chill and purification power, was nothing short of a counter-skill against undead.
‘This… might be worth a try.’
The corner of golden hand’s mouth lifted.
But in stark contrast to Geumson, Ma Jincheol looked down at his own hands with a bitter expression.
In his hands were only a bundle of old blueprints and surveying tools.
“I have no talent for fighting. At best, I can erect ice barriers to bind their feet. Going in there to hunt down the witch… is beyond my ability.”
He was an architect with weak combat prowess.
He could create mazes to trap and confuse enemies, but dealing direct damage was impossible.
That’s why he had only been blocking them, unable to achieve a fundamental resolution.
Seeing Jincheol like that, Geumson grinned.
“Well, that works out perfectly then.”
“What does?”
“Let’s do a job together, old man.”
Ma Jincheol made a face of disbelief.
Though the focus seemed a bit off.
“Why am I an old man? Can’t you see my appearance? I’m a complete young man, what are you…”
“Your way of speaking is already that of an old man, isn’t it? No? Then I’ll keep speaking informally.”
“Really, this guy, isn’t he a piece of work?”
The sudden informal speech, golden hand acting familiar and self-assured.
But Jincheol didn’t refuse the offer.
No, he couldn’t refuse.
Because if it was the ‘connections’ Geumson had shown on the broadcast, they were trustworthy.
“Fine. Then call the Airtos mage legion… No! The Crown Prince! If we just call the Crown Prince!”
“Call who? If you and I just go and push through, it’ll be fine.”
“What? The two of us? Hey, do you even know what it’s like in there?”
A bewildered Ma Jincheol.
Of course, he knew Geumson had shown excellent combat prowess during the Airtos siege.
But that wasn’t enough.
The undead legion occupying Frellia wasn’t a number that could be crushed by individual force.
An endless procession of corpses that kept reviving and never tired.
“Don’t stubbornly charge in and get yourself killed for nothing, we should ask for help…”
Ma Jincheol said with a sour expression.
But golden hand was confident.
The Moon’s Left Hand was a specific remedy for undead.
“If I fail, you can call the mage legion or the prince or whatever… In return, just grant me one request.”
“Ah, what now?”
“Let them out first.”
Geumson pointed to Jeong Harin and Jeong Hajun behind him.
But Ma Jincheol thought for a moment and shook his head.
“I can’t undo the maze. As you know, the undead…”
“Forget the maze, just open an aerial path for a moment.”
“An aerial path?”
The moment Ma Jincheol asked back, Geumson pulled out the royal griffin summoning whistle without hesitation and blew it.
Piiiiiiii—
A sharp whistle sound echoed across the snowy field.
A moment later, the air tore open, and a small gate appeared.
And from within, a griffin revealed itself.
—Peeek… Peek?
But the moment it spotted Tia sitting on Geumson’s shoulder, its momentum instantly deflated.
—Peek…
The griffin crept out, eyeing Tia cautiously.
Its demeanor, quite different from its initial arrogance, was meek and subdued.
Seeing this, Jeong Hajun burst into laughter.
“Wow! Birdie! Big birdie!”
Geumson forced a wry smile at the griffin’s reaction but didn’t miss the flow of magical energy the moment the gate was created.
‘This… if handled well, I might be able to hold the gate open.’
Through his ‘Insight of the pulse’ and ‘magic Domination’ skills, he saw through the magical structure maintaining the gate.
The royal griffin summoning whistle was an item that opened a one-time gate.
But by understanding its principle and manipulating magic, it seemed possible to force a closing gate to stay open, or even fix its coordinates.
‘Worth researching later. If this is possible…’
He might even be able to forcibly close them.
A glimmer of hope appeared.
But Geumson shelved that thought for now and approached the Jeong Harin siblings.
“Get on.”
“Huh? On this?”
“Yes. Ride this to Airtos. It’s the safest place.”
Jeong Harin hesitated.
She seemed reluctant to part with golden hand.
But she also knew.
That she and her brother would only be a burden here.
They said a ‘witch’ was inside.
It was undoubtedly an existence her level couldn’t handle.
“Okay. But…”
“Don’t worry. If fate wills it, we’ll meet again.”
“You know ‘Lepione’ is incredibly vast, right? The probability of meeting again…”
“That’s exactly why, if we meet again, it must be fate, right?”
Geumson reassured Jeong Harin and helped her onto the griffin’s back.
Jeong Hajun, excited, climbed on behind his sister.
Then, Geumson detached the brooch pinned to his chest.
It was the star-shaped brooch that proved one was Astrid’s disciple.
“Here, take this.”
“What is this?”
“A gift.”
Jeong Harin absentmindedly took the brooch.
The brooch emitting a faint blue light felt like no ordinary item just by looking at it.
“Oh my? Oppa Geumson, this gift offensive is a bit burdensome…”
Jeong Harin blushed and joked.
Geumson chuckled softly and lightly flicked her forehead.
“Ow!”
“Feel like keeping up the nonsense? Listen carefully. This is very important.”
golden hand’s expression turned serious.
Jeong Harin also dropped her playful air and listened intently.
“You, do you know why mages wear the hoods of their robes?”
“Hoods? Why, why do they wear them?”
“Hmm…”
Geumson pondered briefly.
The words Astrid had spoken.
He wanted to convey those words, ‘to not see’.
But Geumson didn’t have the eloquence for it.
“Just because.”
“Huh? What does that mean!”
“If you’re curious, ask your master, Lady Astrid, directly.”
And above all, explaining that was Astrid’s role.
Not golden hand, but her master, Astrid’s.
Unaware of this,Jeong Harin’s eyes simply sparkled at the mention of Astrid.
Even Jeong Harin knew, as Astrid had become a celebrity in ‘Lepion’.
