Chapter 109

Candy (5)

We boarded the airship and headed toward the burning Candy Zone.

Argon had growled at us not to come near his zone, but in a situation like this, he probably had no time to care whether we approached or not.

The closer we got, the more clearly we could see the Christmas forest engulfed in flames.

“Why did it suddenly catch fire?”

“How would I know?”

“Dopamine Addict, you didn’t do something, did you?”

“It wasn’t me.”

Of course it wasn’t my doing.

Still, this situation was rather troublesome.

Judging by the circumstances, the fire had started after we were driven out of the Candy Zone, so we could easily appear suspicious.

That was also why I didn’t berate Han Yeoreum for asking such a stupid question.

The possibility of us being framed aside, the fact that the Christmas forest was on fire was a serious problem.

Since the zone used a meteorite as its power source, there was no need for them to light fires. Most of the buildings were also wooden, and because the Candy Zone stood in the middle of a forest, every NPC naturally took extreme care when handling flames.

It was difficult to believe that this fire had started by accident.

Someone had most likely committed arson deliberately.

If they had maliciously set a fire on this scale, neither the safety of the Candy Zone’s residents nor that of my newbie could be guaranteed.

As though someone had been absolutely determined to burn everything down, the forest was ablaze in a perfect circle around the zone, leaving no opening through which anyone could escape.

The flames appeared to have started at the forest’s outer edge. They had not yet spread to the zone itself, but it seemed only a matter of time.

Outside the forest, monsters attracted by the light of the fire were swarming everywhere.

Even if the residents managed to break through the flames, they would clearly end up as monster food.

“You guys wait outside the forest. If any of the Candy Zone residents escape, protect them.”

Taejeong looked startled by my words.

“What? Just us? What are you going to do, Hyung-nim?”

“I’m going to put out the fire.”

“You intend to extinguish it with your ability?”

Mickey Parker, who had the best understanding of abilities among us, asked that question, and I nodded.

However, Mickey Parker did not look particularly supportive of the idea.

“I admit that you’re good at controlling your ability. But that fire isn’t something you can extinguish at your current level.”

He wasn’t wrong.

I had never made rain fall over an area this large before.

I had no idea how long I would have to keep using my ability before the fire was completely extinguished.

There had rarely been an opportunity to push my ability to its absolute limit, so even I didn’t know where that limit lay.

“I might as well use this opportunity to find out how far I can take my ability.”

“You’re insane… You’re going to jump into that fire just to find out?”

[I’ll help you.]

Luna suddenly spoke, causing all of us to look at her simultaneously.

“You’ll help me?”

[I told you. The more meteorites that gather around me, the more power I can use. There happens to be an enormous meteorite in the Candy Zone. One that large should allow me to amplify your ability.]

Luna could amplify my ability?

“Enough to extinguish all of that fire?”

[More than enough.]

Unbelievable.

Even though I possessed one of the earrings Shin Eunjo had left behind as payment for lodging, as well as Home Protector’s pistol, Luna had only been capable of sending telepathic messages, so I hadn’t expected much.

Did the amount of power she could unlock depend not on the number of meteorites but on their size?

Luna’s claim that she could amplify my ability sounded so sweet that I wanted to rush straight to the Candy Zone’s meteorite and test it.

But I couldn’t jump into that inferno without verifying it first.

“Can you amplify an ability using only the meteorites we have now?”

[Hmm… You already use your ability at a level beyond what I can amplify right now. Even if I helped you, the difference wouldn’t be noticeable.]

“Then how about that guy?”

The person I pointed at was Mickey Parker.

Mickey Parker glanced behind himself, then realized I was pointing at him and stared at me as though asking whether I was serious.

“…Why are you dragging me into this, Little Boss?”

[With a weakling like him, the difference should be obvious.]

“You really are a cat. You just say whatever you—”

“Go, Luna.”

[Meow!]

“What?! Wait, what are you trying to—”

When Luna flew toward him, Mickey Parker reflexively closed his eyes and crossed his arms into an X to defend himself.

Then he felt the soft paw pads touch his arm and opened his eyes.

A golden aura began rippling outward from the spot Luna’s paw had touched, and an ecstatic expression spread across his face.

Well, that expression didn’t last long.

A gleaming axe blade soon flew toward the back of his neck, twisting his face in horror.

From what I had observed, Mickey Parker’s ability allowed him to manipulate pieces of metal roughly the size of bullets, while the largest objects he could barely stop were around the size of knives.

An axe was something he normally wouldn’t be able to block with his ability alone.

Sure enough, instead of attempting to stop the axe with his ability, Mickey Parker tried to bend his head backward and dodge it.

“Han Yeoreum!”

Han Yeoreum had been watching the scene with great interest. The moment I called her, she grabbed Mickey Parker’s head without hesitation, holding him in place so that he couldn’t evade the axe.

Mickey Parker went deathly pale and screamed so loudly that veins bulged from his neck.

“Y-You crazy bastards!!”

And then, in the next instant—

Crackle!

Before the axe blade could even touch Mickey Parker’s body, it curled up like a rolling sheet of paper and was flung away with a hollow clang.

The axe blade—no, the axe roll—struck the wall of the airship and fell to the floor, where the weak sound of it rolling away echoed through the cabin.

I watched it with satisfaction and smiled.

“Okay. Verification complete.”

[Luna was right, wasn’t she?]

“Yeah. You’re the best, Hyung. The greatest Hyung ever.”

[L-Luna is the greatest Hyung? Oh my…!]

While Luna and I celebrated, Mickey Parker’s legs seemed to give out.

He collapsed onto the floor of the airship and barely managed to utter a single sentence.

“…You sons of bitches.”

[Luna is a cat, though.]

“You goddamn mythical creatures without a shred of human compassion!!”

What a strange way to curse.

“The bastard who sent you to me said I could do whatever I wanted with you. If you want to blame someone, blame him.”

“You… You…!”

Mickey Parker was apparently too furious to speak and merely pointed an accusing finger at me.

Taejeong walked over, placed a hand on Mickey Parker’s shoulder, and spoke in a soothing tone.

“Give up. We’ve been stabbing the backs of our hands with forks since we were ten years old.”

“You… crazy…”

Even Taejeong, who called me Hyung-nim and followed me more faithfully than anyone else, had basically responded with, “Yes, our Hyung-nim is a crazy bastard. What of it?”

Left with nothing more to say, Mickey Parker sighed.

Good.

I would leave it to Taejeong to comfort Mickey Parker.

It was time to go and properly test the performance of the Candy Zone’s meteorite.

“Come here, Hyung.”

I extended the hand bearing the ring, and Luna disappeared inside it.

After placing Luna in the ring, I climbed onto the hoverboard.

Han Yeoreum and Taejeong watched me with anxious eyes.

“Hey… Don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Please be careful, Hyung-nim.”

Beside the two who were worried about me, Mickey Parker muttered with a baffled expression.

“If we’re going to keep travelling with that bastard, I feel like we’re the ones who need to be careful.”

Right.

It seemed even our pilot was terribly worried about me.

I waved at the three of them reassuringly and flew toward the forest on the hoverboard.

The moment I lowered my altitude over the forest, an enormous wave of heat washed over me.

It was the first time I had felt such intense heat in this frozen world.

Around the halfway point through the forest, I spotted residents desperately fleeing.

They seemed to have chosen this path because the fire was relatively weaker here, but the flames ahead of them were fierce.

I descended to warn them.

“Stop! There’s no path ahead!”

“W-What was that?!”

The Candy Zone NPCs were startled by the voice coming from above their heads.

They soon spotted me and became even more bewildered.

Well, in a zone where people used bows and arrows, it was understandable that they would be shocked to see a person flying through the sky.

“The flames ahead are even worse. Return to the zone.”

“I-Is that true?”

“But even if we go back, there’s nowhere to escape the fire…”

“Wait. Do you all really believe him? We’ve never seen him before! He might be the one who started the fire!”

The NPCs couldn’t decide whether to trust me and turn back or continue forward, so they milled about in confusion.

Then one familiar NPC among them recognized me.

“Oh! You’re the one who saved the Saint earlier…!”

Looking more closely, I realized that he was the NPC who had been injured by the One-Horned Tiger and left lying in the snow.

Only then did I notice that everyone who had escaped this far was either injured, elderly, or a child.

It appeared Argon had arranged for the vulnerable residents to evacuate first.

“That man saved the Saint?”

The moment they heard that I had saved the Saint, public opinion shifted in my favor.

They really were innocent people.

“Yes, that’s right. I saved the Saint. I want to save all of you as well. There’s no path ahead, so you have to return to the zone.”

“B-But even if we flee back into the middle of the forest…”

“I intend to extinguish the fire. So please return without fear.”

The NPCs grew noisy when I told them that I planned to put out the fire.

As I examined each one of them, I realized that the Saint, who should have been among the injured, was nowhere to be seen.

“Is this everyone? Where is the Saint?”

“Oh, the others stayed behind to help Lord Argon extinguish the fire spreading to the zone.”

So the Saint had remained behind to protect the zone despite the circumstances.

There was no chance they could extinguish a fire like this by themselves, but it was fortunate that so few residents had abandoned the zone.

“Let’s return to the zone for now. I’ll go on ahead and help this Argon or whatever his name is.”

I flew toward the center of the forest on the hoverboard and soon spotted people moving frantically.

Argon and the physically healthy residents were carrying water back and forth, desperately trying to extinguish the flames spreading to the houses.

Argon was the most desperate among them.

He was a cripple. He could easily have fled with the other injured residents.

He must have known that extinguishing the flames already touching the buildings would not solve the greater problem.

Yet he still refused to flee.

It seemed his love for the zone was genuine.

That still didn’t mean he was allowed to exploit my newbie, though.

“Do you really think that’s going to put out the fire?”

I spoke while hovering above them on the board.

Argon looked around, unable to tell where the voice had come from. When he finally spotted me above his head, he flinched in surprise.

“You! Hayden’s son!”

Argon pointed at me and roared.

“So it was your doing after all?! Like father, like son…!”

“I don’t know why you keep bringing up my father.”

The circumstances made his misunderstanding understandable, so instead of losing my temper, I calmly explained.

“I wasn’t the one who set fire to the forest. I came here to help you.”

“You came… to help us?”

“Why else would I be crazy enough to fly into the middle of a burning forest?”

Argon stared at me uncertainly, clearly unable to trust me.

Then he noticed the NPCs I had encountered earlier returning behind me and nearly jumped out of his skin.

“You people! Didn’t you evacuate? Why did you come back?!”

“T-That man said the zone would be safer…”

“Haydam! Are you trying to get us all killed?”

[It looks like this is only creating more misunderstandings.]

The moonstone in my ring glimmered as Luna’s voice rang out.

[Let’s go to the meteorite. Once you extinguish the fire, they’ll believe you!]

Right.

Showing them through action would be faster than explaining everything with words.

I ignored Argon’s furious shouting and flew toward the meteorite.

When I stepped off the hoverboard and stood atop the meteorite, Argon and the other NPCs all stared at me anxiously, unable to understand what I was planning.

I addressed them.

“Everyone, take shelter near me.”

“What in the world are you trying to do…?!”

“I’m going to make it rain.”

“What?”

No further explanation was necessary.

Luna sprang from my ring and landed lightly on the meteorite.

Golden streams of light began to ripple outward from where she touched down.

I had seen those streams before.

In the cave beneath the crevasse.

Just like the ones I had seen emerging from the magic circle left behind there, the rippling golden light transformed into countless tentacle-like strands.

They thrashed through the air before beginning to cling to my body.

Each tentacle gripping me felt heavy, as though it possessed weight of its own.

‘What the hell?!’

Even I was shaken by the sudden tentacle party.

The expressions of the Candy Zone NPCs watching me, however, were closer to absolute horror.

“Luna! Are you sure this is okay?!”

[There’s no problem!]

No problem?

The tentacles were writhing and crawling up my body right now.

…Whatever.

If I couldn’t trust my Hyung, who could I trust?

Extinguishing the fire came first.

I drew out every last ounce of my ability.

‘She was telling the truth…’

Luna’s claim that she could amplify my ability had not been a lie.

Gathering my power felt unbelievably easy.

Luna had once said that controlling an ability was like moving one’s arms and legs.

But now it felt as natural as breathing.

I inhaled once.

Above the night sky illuminated by the forest fire, dark clouds gathered at a terrifying speed, covering the entire forest in an instant.

Then I exhaled.

It was as though the heavens had split apart.

Raindrops fell.

Then sheets of rain.

Then a torrential downpour.

“This can’t be…!”

Argon’s disbelieving cry sounded impossibly distant.

At that moment, I was the raindrops.

I was the rain.

I was the storm.

The flames consuming the forest immediately began to subside.

As the fire died down, I could even clearly sense the movements of the monsters entering the Christmas forest, trampling over the fir trees that had been reduced to ash.

As long as the rain touched them, I could sense everything within this space.

“Aaah! M-Monsters have made it this far…!”

The burned Christmas trees could no longer keep the monsters out.

Countless monsters, attracted by the flames and the presence of humans, were rushing toward the zone.

Even so, I could not understand why the people were afraid.

Crackle—

A spark danced across my body.

Then golden currents of electricity erupted from the meteorite at the center, spreading outward and frying every approaching monster black without missing a single one.

“W-What is that?”

“Aaaaaaah!!!”

“Aaaargh!!”

For some reason, the screams around me became even louder after I fried the monsters.

But they didn’t particularly bother me.

Everything felt so easy.

So natural.

I raised one hand.

A bolt of lightning erupted from me and split the snowy plain in two.

It felt as though I could accomplish something far greater than this.

No.

I wanted to see just how far I could go.

The moment I began to raise my other hand as well, something soft pressed firmly against my forehead.

[You can’t go any further.]

I felt the power drain from my body.

My mind snapped back to clarity.

The golden streams that had been gripping my body had already vanished.

All that remained was the meteorite, now emitting smoke, and the people staring at me with expressions filled with fear and reverence.