Chapter 239
– ……G-gurgle! Ah-choo!
The Lava Giant trembled violently.
Bending at the waist, it unleashed a vicious sneeze.
Lava snot splattered everywhere, scorching the ground.
Watching that, Lloyd thought.
‘Huh? Sneezing without a mask, how rude… No, no, that’s not the point. Could it be that giant is weak to cold wind?’
A clear ding-dong seemed to ring in his head, like a bell.
The Hellgate had been opened purely to escape.
But of all places, it had connected to the polar regions of the human world.
Thanks to that, a fierce, freezing, knife-like wind was now roaring through the Hellgate.
And before it, the Lava Giant was shivering pathetically.
It hugged its shoulders, shrinking in on itself.
It kept sneezing, over and over, neck tucked tight.
– Gurgle! Ah-choo! Kurrrug! It-choo! Gurgle! Wah-choo!
Seeing that, a ‘what if’ rose in Lloyd’s mind.
The question became suspicion.
Suspicion became possibility.
And possibility glimmered into a vague hope.
‘Maybe this can work. First, confirm it!’
Lloyd grabbed the shovel hanging from Ggoming’s saddle.
He lightly spun two Circles.
Collided them.
Then thrust the shovel forward.
‘Thump!’
Detonation shot out from the shovel and flew dozens of meters.
It slammed into one shoulder of the shivering Lava Giant.
‘Thwack!’
– Grruk!
As if stung, the Lava Giant snapped its gaze this way.
Startled, Lloyd immediately pulled Ggoming’s nose up.
Fearing a counterattack, he quickly gained altitude.
And watched.
The shoulder he’d just hit.
‘Please. Let me be right.’
Longing and hope lit Lloyd’s eyes.
If he was right…
Maybe they could bring the Lava Giant down.
They wouldn’t have to abandon the railway construction.
They wouldn’t have to throw away all the effort poured into this place.
‘So please!’
His gaze, brimming with hope, clung to the Lava Giant’s shoulder.
And sure enough, the shoulder began to recover.
‘Ggrurgle!’
Like bubbling, boiling curry.
A shoulder made of seething lava.
The hole—about fifty centimeters wide and three meters deep—was repaired.
But the speed of that recovery…
‘It’s slower.’
Lloyd’s eyes sparkled.
He was sure now.
The regeneration had slowed.
Even though it was a small hole.
Much smaller than the damage it took earlier under Javier’s onslaught.
Even so, the Lava Giant’s recovery was clearly slower than before.
And Lloyd knew why.
‘That bastard got blasted by polar wind, so its body cooled down a bit.’
That was it.
It was a simple principle, really.
Think of boiling curry.
You can’t cut boiling curry with a knife, or pierce it with an awl.
No matter how much you slice or stab, it just bubbles and fills back in immediately.
‘But what if that curry cools down?’
It thickens.
It hardens.
Anyone who’s stuffed a pot of curry into a container and left it in the fridge would understand.
‘Hardened curry can be cut with a knife. You can poke holes into it.’
Lava had to be the same.
If it cooled, hardened, and began to petrify…
It wouldn’t instantly recover the way it had been.
‘We can do it. We can do it. This is a jackpot.’
Flying through the knife-like polar wind now swirling through Hell’s sky, Lloyd looked at the Hellgate with teary eyes.
‘You lucky charm.’
Only now did that Hellgate look beautiful.
It really had been opened to escape.
He truly hadn’t known it would connect to the polar regions and bring them a path to victory.
“So let’s do this properly now. Ggoming!”
“Ggoming!”
“Down first!”
“Kkomiming!”
Cutting through the wind, he dropped his altitude.
The moment he was close enough for his voice to carry, he shouted.
“Javier!”
Javier reacted to the shout.
From about two hundred meters away, he glanced back.
“Up there! Can you see the Hellgate in the sky!”
Nod.
Javier nodded.
Lloyd poured more Mana into his voice and shouted.
“That cold wind coming out of it! That giant is cooling down! I think we can catch it!”
Nod.
Javier nodded again.
He’d felt it too.
‘It’s thanks to the Hellgate Lloyd-nim opened.’
He could see the Lava Giant shivering in the cold wind.
Clearly shivering, just as Lloyd-nim had said.
Then it probably wouldn’t regenerate as quickly as before.
‘I need to do my part.’
Lloyd-nim came to Hell trusting me.
So I must repay that trust.
When danger appears, I must handle it.
That was Javier’s role, coming to Hell with Lloyd-nim.
‘Crack!’
Veins bulged on the back of the hand gripping his sword.
From then on, Javier’s onslaught became even fiercer.
‘Skrrk!’
Without a shred of mercy or hesitation.
With nothing but conviction.
He slashed, and slashed again.
Sliced, and sliced again.
Cut, and cut again, carving into the world itself.
His strikes cleaved through the Lava Giant’s entire body evenly, as if tamping it down.
– Grrrug! Ah-choo! Grrrug! Gurgle!
Already rattled by the sudden, extreme cold, the Lava Giant was thrown into confusion as Javier’s assault grew even more relentless.
Its body was shredded again and again by Aura.
Of course, it still regenerated.
But that regeneration slowed, little by little.
Because the lava was cooling in the cold wind.
The Lava Giant understood.
If this kept up, it might actually die here.
If its body cooled, hardened, and then took those sword strikes head-on…
It might not hold together anymore.
Then there was only one answer.
– See you later! Ah-choo! Gurgle!
‘Skrrk!’
Even as dozens of Aura strikes rained down, the Lava Giant twisted its body.
It blatantly showed its back to Javier.
And began to run, limping.
“Huh? That bastard, don’t tell me…”
Watching from the sky, Lloyd muttered.
A thick, ominous feeling rose in his chest, like ten-year bone broth coming to a boil, whoosh-whoosh.
And soon, that feeling became reality.
‘Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!’
“…That bastard! It’s running away!”
Lloyd shouted, ‘Eek!’
It was true.
Sensing the tide turning against it, the Lava Giant was blatantly fleeing.
‘What kind of bastard is that?’
Lloyd nearly grabbed the back of his neck.
He couldn’t help it.
The thing had come out of nowhere and turned the construction site into a wreck.
It ignored them even as they tried to stop it.
And now, the moment things became slightly unfavorable, it ran?
“Catch that bastard!”
Lloyd’s shout turned urgent.
Not just because he was furious at its opportunistic behavior.
No.
‘If we lose that bastard here, the construction is over. Finished.’
Lloyd was certain.
If they let the Lava Giant escape now…
If they didn’t finish it off completely…
They would never get another chance.
‘I’m not sure about everything, but that much I know. If we don’t catch it here, we’ll never get a chance like this again.’
The reason was simple.
The Hellgate he’d opened.
The polar wind pouring through it.
That wind wouldn’t reach far.
‘Of course. No matter how cold it is, it’s only what’s coming through a Hellgate a few meters wide. Compared to that, Hell is enormous.’
To put it metaphorically…
It was like installing an air conditioner meant for a 16.5 m² room in a 992 m² mansion living room.
‘Only the area right in front of it is cool. Move a little away, and it gets hot again.’
Suddenly, he remembered South Korea.
Specifically, enduring its brutal summers.
Of course, the tiny room he’d lived in had no air conditioner.
Expecting that in the cheapest, oldest goshiwon would’ve been a luxury.
So on days that were truly unbearable…
Days he felt like he’d be cooked alive…
He’d go to a nearby bank or district office.
Because you could get free air-conditioned wind there.
‘Even then it wasn’t easy. Those people, trying to save on electricity, set the air conditioner weak. Stingy bastards.’
The bank was huge.
But the air conditioning output was subtly weak.
So you had to stand right under it to cool down properly.
Thanks to that valuable(?) experience, Lloyd could read the Lava Giant’s thinking perfectly.
‘That bastard knows that if it gets out of this area, the cold wind won’t matter anymore.’
All it had to do was escape.
Get far from the Hellgate.
Then the wind would weaken.
Its briefly cooled body would heat up again.
And it would regain that invincible body that regenerated instantly from any damage.
‘…That’s its calculation. And if it works, we’ll never catch it. We won’t even be able to stop it. The railroad isn’t just here. It’s a full 110 kilometers!’
In other words, if that bastard escaped now…
And if it decided to keep interfering with their construction…
It could rampage at sections beyond the Hellgate’s reach.
No matter how hard he and Javier tried.
No matter how desperately they fought to stop it.
They wouldn’t be able to.
‘Because I can only open this one Hellgate. I can’t open others elsewhere. I can keep this one open here, but I can’t create more.’
So they had to catch the Lava Giant here, no matter what.
First, they had to stop it from getting away.
Lloyd shouted, frantic.
“Catch it! Hit its legs first!”
He gripped the shovel tighter and urged Ggoming forward, flying after it.
From then on…
In the sky, Lloyd.
On the ground, Javier.
They poured relentless attacks onto the Lava Giant in their own way.
Lloyd unleashed Triple Blast without hesitation, hammering its knees and shins.
Javier’s Aura carved into its lower body countless times.
Each time, lava like fresh blood dripped and burst from its legs.
With its regeneration slowed by the cold, it limped harder.
But…
– Grururuk! Gruruk!
They couldn’t stop it.
Even as it limped more violently.
Even as it dragged its feet.
The Lava Giant kept moving.
With each huge stride, it steadily widened the distance from the Hellgate.
Lloyd’s expression darkened.
‘Damn it.’
They couldn’t stop it.
They couldn’t hold it.
No matter how cold the polar wind was, that massive body couldn’t be cooled to the core in an instant.
Only the surface was gradually cooling.
No matter how much they struck and cut, it wasn’t enough.
Even if it slowed, its regeneration hadn’t stopped.
Realizing that, a tear formed at the corner of Lloyd’s eye.
‘It’s too big. In moments like this, we need something its size to block it. That would be perfect. If only Bibeong were here!’
Wouldn’t the situation be different?
A heart-wrenching regret rose.
‘Bibeong is around a hundred meters. And it’s heavy, too.’
Even if the Lava Giant was two hundred meters tall…
If it was limping like this, Bibeong could’ve grabbed on and stopped its steps.
But even that was useless to think about now.
‘And I didn’t lend Bibeong for free to the King so I could save him, you idiot!’
If he could, he wanted to go back four months.
Grab himself by the collar and scream.
Either don’t lend Bibeong.
Or if you’re going to lend it, charge a massive rental fee.
Never for free.
Nothing is free, even between family.
He wanted to shout it into his own ear at full volume.
‘Damn it. Damn it!’
Because he’d complacently lent Bibeong…
Because of that stupid decision back then…
This railway construction was about to be ruined.
The thread of hope he’d finally found was about to snap.
Three months of effort was about to become nothing.
And he wouldn’t be able to save the Ancient Dragon’s soul.
The Dragon King sponsorship membership was about to become a fleeting dream.
‘Why did I lend it for free?’
It was so unfair, so maddening.
Tears welled, glittering.
Meanwhile, the Lava Giant kept limping away.
Even as Javier’s Aura grew fiercer…
Its escape didn’t stop.
“…Haah.”
When the Hellgate opened.
When the cold wind poured out.
Lloyd had glimpsed hope, if only for a moment.
But now there really was no way.
He had to admit it.
Lloyd let out a deep sigh.
With the feeling of watching the last two packets of 1+1 ramen at the neighborhood supermarket get snatched away by someone else right in front of him, he stared blankly at the Lava Giant’s retreating back.
And so, he still hadn’t realized.
He still had one hidden card of hope left.
The Hellgate he’d opened.
The Hellgate connected to the polar regions.
In the Arctic sea not far from that Hellgate…
There was the youngest of the Bone Corps.
The Bone Dragon.
Earlier, by Lloyd’s order to ‘hide in the northern sea,’ it had come here.
Submerged quietly in the frigid Arctic Ocean.
And only now, it finally sensed Lloyd’s presence.
‘Krrrk!’
– …It’s Lloyd!
– This is Master Lloyd’s scent!
‘Whoosh!’
Like a dog catching its master’s scent after a long time, the Bone Dragon surged with joy.
It thrust its head above the water’s surface.
And spotted the Hellgate hanging open in the sky above.