Return of the Frozen Player

Arthur looked around warily as the waves of the sea collided against his shoes.

He was nervous.

‘Damn it… this is nerve-wracking.’

Arthur couldn’t quite shake off the anxiety in his heart.

He was scared that Isaac Dvor would appear out of the blue and chop his head off.

‘Above all…’

An approaching repulsive energy made his skin tingle.

The source of the disgusting energy was none other than Isaac Dvor.

“Haaa.” The fine sand of the beach turned into mud and stuck to Arthur’s ankle.

Arthur felt as if a mountain were weighing on his shoulder, but he didn’t lose courage.

“...” Arthur felt like he had become a sharp sword.

‘I can do this. I just have to cut him down as soon as he approaches me.’

His keen senses captured his opponent’s breathing.

“Hmm. It seems you’re more talented than your father,” Isaac remarked.

Isaac thought highly of the young Player in front of him.

“You’re impressive,” added Isaac. He meant it. Arthur was indeed qualified to become the next Hero who would take care of humanity in the future.

“Indeed, you’re impressive for your age.”

Arthur was a flower that hadn’t bloomed just yet. Isaac smiled. His eyes sparkled as he said, “Be distrustful of everything in front of a fiend—I thought I heard that saying in Specter’s biography.”

“...What?”

“The same goes for when your opponent is a magician.”

What if one’s opponent was both a fiend and a mage?

“Everything has to be doubted if that’s the case,” Isaac spoke as if he were a teacher telling his student an answer. “Against an opponent who is both a fiend and a mage, you must question your senses and every phenomenon in front of you.”

“What are you—”

Arthur finally discovered it.

The mud that stuck to his ankle had climbed up to his knee and was making its way over to his thigh.

“Sand does not turn into mud by adding water…”

“...!”

“A grain of sand is too huge for it to become the primary constituent of—I guess that doesn’t really matter.” Isaac interrupted himself and smiled. “How unfortunate. I’m sure you would have known that if your parents had brought you to the beach even once while you were still young.”

“Shut up!”

“It’s no use. You can only escape if your magic somehow surpasses my demonic energy,” said Isaac.

Arthur’s face turned pale.

‘I can’t believe I lost before I even got the chance to fight him properly.’

“Don’t hate me. It won’t be long until you are reunited with your mother and father.”

“...Damn it. I didn’t want to use it so early.” Arthur bit his lips and glared at Isaac. “I want to tell you something.”

“Oh? Is it your last words?”

“No.” Arthur mustered his magic. He cast Telekinesis before continuing. “Specter’s biography also says that one should also be wary of Players, and it’s all because Players are oftentimes prepared for anything.”

“...!” Isaac was startled. He looked down and saw that Arthur wasn’t moving him with his Telekinesis but the entire sandy beach.

“What?!”

Boom!

A powerful explosion engulfed Isaac.

The explosion was so powerful that it sent both sand and seawater soaring into the sky.

“Huff, puff...” Arthur’s breathing became ragged, and there was a throbbing pain in his temples.

He had just simultaneously triggered the explosion of thirty claymore mines buried in the sand while moving the sandy beach to point the claymore mines’ kill zone at Isaac.

The explosion was so powerful that ninety-nine percent of Players would die if they were subjected to such an explosion.

‘But…’

Unfortunately, Isaac Dvor was in the top one percent of Players.

The sand soon settled, and Arthur finally saw Isaac.

The latter was in terrible shape.

Isaac shook the grains of sand off of his shoulders and head.

“...Well, that was a good wake-up call,” Isaac muttered. He didn’t suffer any severe injuries because of his magic barrier, but he ended up consuming a ton of demonic energy to protect himself.

‘I shouldn’t have let my guard down.’

Isaac thought that he didn’t have to worry about falling for modern traps and weapons because he was capable of disabling them, thanks to his unique characteristic as a fiend who had consumed the blood of a gremlin.

‘I didn’t expect that he would use ancient traps like claymores.’

Isaac flicked his wet hair and laughed. “I guess you did some research about me.”

“Yes. My dad never took me to the beach, but he taught me how to kill a bastard.”

“Hah.”

‘How cheeky of him.’ Isaac took a brief moment to measure how much demonic energy he had consumed by defending himself. ‘Tsk.’

Equation of Death was a spell capable of reviving even the dead, so its cast conditions were extremely complicated and stringent.

“I guess I have to change my plan.” Isaac’s original plan was to bait Gilberto out by using Arthur as a hostage, but he needed a change of plan.

‘I can’t afford to waste that much time.’

Isaac had already consumed more demonic energy than he had been planning on using against Arthur. He had to deal with Specter once he was done with Gilberto and Arthur, so he had to ensure that he would have enough demonic energy by then.

“You could have lived a bit longer. You made your bed, now lie in it.”

Isaac snapped his fingers, and a deck of cards fell like rain on Arthur.

“What?!”

Clank! Clank! Clank!

Arthur swung his swords to send the cards flying, but they were heavier than he expected.

‘Damn it! Why are these cards so heavy…?!’

The falling cards consumed Arthur’s strength and stamina like crazy.

Snap!

Arthur’s sword shattered upon colliding with a card. His eyes inadvertently turned toward the fragment of his sword on the sandy beach.

‘Has thirty seconds always been this long?’

Arthur had never expected that he would one day think that thirty seconds was a long time.

Shwik!

A card pierced Arthur’s left shoulder.

“Argh!”

Arthur had just screamed in agony, but another card had already fallen and pierced his right thigh. Arthur was forced to his knees, and he looked up to try and defend himself.

His eyes reflected hundreds of playing cards falling toward him.

‘Ah… I’m gonna die.’

Crackle!

A loud rumble echoed, and the playing cards vanished without a trace.

“...!”

Arthur and Isaac’s gaze turned toward where the attack had come from.

“Gilberto?” Isaac’s eyes narrowed.

‘What an idiot.’

His son had managed to buy him a few seconds by risking his life, but Gilberto chose to save his son with the lethal move he had prepared instead of using it to try and kill Isaac.

‘He wasted it.’ Now, Isaac could leisurely kill them. ‘Let’s deal with the scarier one.’

Isaac flicked his sleeve. “Lord of Cards!”

Thud!

A massive card landed in front of Isaac.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Dozens of cards landed on the sandy beach all the way to where Gilberto was located.

“You should have shot me, not my cards.”

The cards fell forward like a domino, and they were terrifyingly fast as they rushed at Gilberto.

“...” Gilberto wordlessly aimed at his target.

‘I’m not quite used to this yet.’

Gilberto had failed to create the weapon he wanted because he was still not used to controlling Ethe. His finger landed on the trigger, and he muttered, “I’ll have to reduce the output the next time I use this...”

Click.

The trigger was pulled, and Gilberto felt the Ether inside of him rushing toward the barrel of his weapon.

Crackleeeee!

A railgun was a weapon that used electromagnetic force to launch projectiles at high velocity, but Gilberto wasn’t using a simple projectile here.

He wasn’t using a bullet made out of magic or lead.

‘Ether is stronger than any other projectile out there.’

Boom!

Gilberto’s Ether condensed to form an azure bullet that shot toward Isaac

“This is absurd…” muttered Gilberto.

The bullet he had fired through the railgun he had made ignored the laws of physics. The wind was strong, and it was raining, but the Ether bullet ignored all those and made a beeline for its target without even the slightest trajectory deviation.

“What?”

Isaac was appalled upon seeing his playing cards disappear like bubbles.

‘My cards are… being annihilated on contact?’

Isaac instinctively mustered the full extent of his demonic energy to cast the Equation of Death.

Boom!

Isaac exploded into a bloody mist upon being struck by Gilberto’s Ether bullet.

“Huh?” Arthur was drenched in Isaac’s blood, and he blinked blankly while staring at where Isaac had been standing just a few seconds ago. ‘Isaac is dead? It did take Father a long time to prepare it, but to think it would kill a Heaven instantly…’

Arthur turned to look at his father in shock. He couldn’t believe that such an attack had come from the same man who had been whining about retiring just until recently.

“God...” Arthur said. He chuckled hollowly in shock before walking toward his father.

However, he flinched and came to a halt when the death energy hovering over the sandy beach swept past him.

“Argh! Keheuk!” Isaac spat a mouthful of blood as he regenerated. He was disoriented—perhaps it was because his brain was still regenerating.

‘I’m dying? No, did I die? I died once?’ Isaac’s pupils constricted upon realizing that he could have died if he had been even a beat too late in casting his Equation of Death.

Isaac Dvor staggered up. “Huff, puff…”

His organs and bones regenerated and returned to their original places.

“Y-y-y-your… your father. Got ridiculously stronger compared to back in Seoul,” said Isaac.[1]

‘But I-I’m the winner because I came back to life…’ Isaac felt that Gilberto’s fearsome attack had a cooldown.

“I-I am g-going to take a break.” Isaac could only abandon his plan of assisting Valencia, as facing Specter in his current condition would be no different from committing suicide.

He truly liked Valencia as a colleague, but he didn’t like her enough for him to risk his life just to save her.

‘I have to leave.’ Isaac’s brain finally recovered. He was running low on demonic energy, but he still had enough demonic energy to escape.

Fwoosh!

Isaac covered himself with a black cloth.

“Arthur Green. Please tell your father that his bullet finally reached me.”

‘But there won’t be a next time...’

Fwoosh!

“Damn it! Wait!”

Arthur hurriedly tore the black cloth apart, but Isaac Dvor was gone.

***

“I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’m not planning on letting you go,” Gilberto murmured.

Isaac was right.

Gilberto had used up most of his Ether and magic, so he couldn’t afford to fire his railgun again.

‘But…’

Gilberto’s eyes turned to the forest in the west.

He saw Isaac reappear a kilometer deep in that forest.

“It seems that you’re running on empty as well.”

Isaac had perished, after all. Sure, he had come back to life, but there was no way he would have enough demonic energy to stage a perfect escape. Gilberto also reckoned that Isaac was having trouble moving because he was still recovering.

‘I’m running on empty as well, but… I don’t have to use magic to pull a trigger.’

Gilberto stared at the running Isaac through the scope of his sniper rifle.

The leaves and branches of trees were blocking Isaac’s figure, and the latter was getting farther and farther away as well. Gilberto’s head started to throb as he ran many simulations in his head.

Gilberto forced himself to remain calm and focused on his target.

Drizzle…

The incessant noise of the rain and the whistling of air vanished. Gilberto couldn’t perceive anything else aside from his target.

‘Distance, wind speed, wind direction, wind strength, bullet drop, spindrift, and obstacle influence…’

Gilberto took all those variables into account and simulated what would happen once he pulled the trigger as if his mind were a ballistic computer.

It would be unreasonable to say that Gilberto’s prowess was born because of his talent.

It would have been nice if he were a talented Player in the first place, but Gilberto had never been a talent.

His calculations were a result of countless repetitions, theorizing, and practice.

His prowess was a product of the data he had engraved on his fingertips, mind, and heart.

“Isaac Dvor…” The noises, colors, and obstacles disappeared, and Gilberto couldn’t see anything else aside from his target. Gilberto finally pulled the trigger. “You’re done.”

Boom!

Gilberto put his gun down and retrieved a flare from his Inventory.

He aimed at the sky and pulled the trigger.

Boom!

A blue light painted the gloomy skies, and it shone brilliantly despite the heavy rain.

1. Yes, he speaks like this in this sentence, probably because his brain is still in the middle of regenerating ☜