Chapter 240
This was the North Sea.
A harsh polar region where nothing but ice and waves—mixed with knife-like winds—raged.
It had been three days since the Bone Dragon arrived here.
It had come for one reason: to obey the command of its master, Lloyd.
“You, for the time being, go hide your body in the sea north of the capital.”
…Or something like that.
That command became the Bone Dragon’s absolute top priority.
The [Undead Domination Skill].
Through that skill, Lloyd was the first master it had ever served and obeyed.
The Bone Dragon liked its master, Lloyd.
So it wanted to be praised by Lloyd.
And how did it get praised a lot?
By doing exactly what it was told.
That was why it flew diligently north from the capital.
After flying for a while, the sea appeared.
For a moment, it almost felt satisfied.
But the Bone Dragon quickly realized that wouldn’t do.
Because the sea continued even farther north.
‘Creak!’
North. Only north. Farther north. All the way to the absolute north.
Lloyd said to hide in the northern sea.
So if it hid in the northernmost sea in the entire world…
It felt like it would get even more praise.
That thought excited it.
It put more strength into its wingbeats.
Farther north.
Still north.
Endlessly north.
It flew like crazy all day long.
At last, it arrived at the sea of the polar region—the northernmost point on the planet.
‘Creak!’
The moment it arrived, the Bone Dragon shook its large skull.
It sensed the planet’s magnetic field using trace magnetite mixed into its horns.
Thanks to that, it could be sure.
And it could be satisfied.
This was the northernmost point.
So if it hid quietly here, it would surely receive abundant praise from Lloyd.
Convinced and satisfied, the Bone Dragon immediately dove into the sea.
It punched through several meters of iceberg and enjoyed an icy “hot spring” soak.
But even that wasn’t easy.
Because the territoriality in this neighborhood(?) was worse than expected.
‘ROOOAR!’
The first resident of this sea to stake its claim was the Giga Titan.
Body length: 90 meters. Weight: 2,500 tons. On top of that, a shell capable of absorbing and blocking tremendous impacts.
The Giga Titan was an underwater monster boasting a formidable physical spec in its own right.
But compared to the Bone Dragon?
It was just a bothersome lobster.
‘Creak—thwack!’
The Bone Dragon flicked.
One blow.
Sensing death from that alone, the Giga Titan hastily fled.
At the same time, the Bone Dragon felt infinite trust toward its master, Lloyd.
Because through that majestic little battle just now, it realized once again how great its master was.
“Even if guys like Giga Titans come at you, just flick them. You’re stronger.”
…That was what Lloyd had advised.
Its master’s words were truly correct.
That made the Bone Dragon even more excited.
It performed a dance of carnage against the Arctic sea monsters that rushed it, questioning its intrusion.
The Emperor Whale, as large as a Giga Titan but faster.
The Teralodon, a supersized shark with neatly aligned, charmingly sharp teeth.
The Kraken, called the absolute powerhouse of the deep sea.
It defeated them all with flicks.
Then the final bosses of the underwater ecosystem hierarchy gradually revealed themselves.
The mermaid legion.
“We cannot stand by while a being moved by evil sorcery pollutes the sea! Sisters!”
“Streamlined, flexible, and powerful!”
“Dolphin kick, relentlessly and boldly!”
“Sisters, charge!”
The mermaids were truly powerful.
They were beings that couldn’t help but be strong.
You could tell just by looking at Earth’s swimmers.
Michael Phelps, the strongest swimmer with eight Olympic gold medals.
His famously brutal training volume was six hours a day—six days a week.
But the mermaids?
They swam twenty-four hours a day.
They swam week after week.
For them, swimming was simply their life—their very existence.
Thanks to that, the mermaids’ bodies were weapons in themselves.
A robust Olympic medalist?
Their baseline physique made someone like that look like a child.
Shoulder muscles as vast as the Pacific.
Chest muscles capable of deflecting even a rushing meteor.
Washboard abs that could make even a top-loading washing machine ring.
Worm-like tendons packed all over their bodies.
They were literally the underwater world’s strongest hardcore extreme swimmers, tempered by a lifetime of swimming.
And there were a whopping one thousand of them.
A force capable of kindly prime-factorizing a decent-sized Giga Titan into head, chest, and stomach within thirty seconds.
And the Bone Dragon, taking that charge head-on?
It was thrilled.
‘Creak! Creak!’
The mermaids were too fast, rarely getting hit by flicks.
Even when it landed a hit now and then, they endured it with a bit of pain thanks to their tremendous muscular toughness, recovered quickly, and rushed in again.
The blows the mermaids delivered were also substantial.
Thanks to that, the bone joints that had stiffened from flying north all day finally felt refreshed.
And the mermaids had excellent stamina.
With transcendent lung capacity, they charged for nearly three full days without their momentum fading.
That was why.
For three whole days after arriving in the Arctic Ocean, the Bone Dragon had no time to be bored.
It was fun.
It was rewarding.
And at the same time, it thought:
It would be really nice if its master, Lloyd, could share in this fun.
But that was impossible.
Because Lloyd had gone to Hell.
The Bone Dragon found that truly regrettable.
Maybe that was why.
A little while ago, when Lloyd’s Mana suddenly brushed its senses, the Bone Dragon felt a joy that made it want to jump.
‘Creak!’
At first, it thought it was mistaken.
But it wasn’t.
It was definitely Lloyd’s Mana.
The mutual location tracking function of the [Undead Domination Skill] had been severed when Lloyd went to Hell, but it started working again a little while ago.
Thanks to that, it could feel it.
Its master, Lloyd, was nearby!
‘Creak! Creak! Sploosh!’
The Bone Dragon immediately raised its head.
It looked toward the sky above the sea where Lloyd’s Mana was felt.
And there it found it.
A Hellgate, five meters in diameter, hanging open about a hundred meters above the nearby sky.
It could feel the unique hot energy of Hell flowing from it.
It could also feel the timeline in this area synchronizing with Hell’s.
The moment it sensed that, the Bone Dragon realized.
Lloyd was beyond that Hellgate.
‘Thump!’
It was so happy.
It immediately took flight.
It even wiggled its pelvis cutely.
It shook off the mermaids clinging tenaciously to it.
Then it charged toward the Hellgate.
But it couldn’t enter.
‘Clunk!’
The Bone Dragon was far too large to pass through a Hellgate that was only(?) five meters wide.
But it didn’t panic at all.
The method was simple.
‘Crack-crack!’
It disassembled every joint in its entire body.
It split its bulky skull and pelvis into the smallest possible pieces.
After dividing its whole body into bone fragments one by one, it lined them up in the air.
Like a chugging train, it sent them through the Hellgate in a single instant, one after another.
Without hesitation, it entered the skies of Hell.
And there, it reassembled itself.
‘Crack-crack-crack! Creak! Crack!’
The moment the assembly was complete, it scanned its surroundings.
A hellscape utterly different from the polar region it had just left.
And within it, it found Lloyd instantly.
‘Creak!’
It saw Lloyd flying low on a sparrow.
It stirred the air with its wings and shot toward Lloyd at explosive speed, landing nearby.
‘KRAAANG!- With a roar on landing, it wagged its tail vigorously.
It even flopped flat on the ground, exposing its belly to show its joy.
It waited eagerly for Lloyd’s praise.
Then Lloyd shouted, “Ack!”
“Hey! I’m about to die from urgency here—what’s with the greetings! If you’re here, earn your keep first! Catch that bastard!”
‘Creak?’
The Bone Dragon tilted its head.
It had greeted him happily, but…
Lloyd’s reaction was lukewarm.
No—he’d scolded it like he was about to die of urgency.
It wondered why.
It was curious.
It looked to where Lloyd was pointing.
Only then did it see the Lava Giant running away—thump-thump-thump.
At that moment, the Bone Dragon’s gaze turned to pure fury.
‘Creak!’
Because of that giant.
That giant made Lloyd rush.
That giant ruined its happy greeting.
So that bastard had to be smashed.
‘Crack!’
The enraged Bone Dragon stomped the ground.
In an instant, it flew hundreds of meters.
It landed in front of the fleeing Lava Giant.
And grabbed it.
‘KRAAANG!’
The Bone Dragon and the Lava Giant.
Two giant monsters of similar stature collided head-on.
For the first time, the Lava Giant’s tremendous escape was halted.
– Gurururuk? Gureuk?
The Lava Giant’s eyes widened in shock.
A Bone Dragon appearing out of nowhere and grabbing it.
It couldn’t understand.
It tried to break free.
But it was impossible.
– GURURURROAR! GUGUREUK!
It spewed lava-tinged breath at the Bone Dragon’s head.
It grabbed the Bone Dragon’s ribs with a boiling, bubbling lava grip.
It expected the Bone Dragon to flinch from the heat.
But it was wrong.
The Bone Dragon wasn’t hot at all.
The reason was simple.
A dragon’s bones were literally dragon spine bones.
In other words, the Bone Dragon regarded the lava’s intense heat as nothing more than a grandfather’s stone bed on heating-pad mode.
‘Crack-crack!’
The Bone Dragon exerted even more monstrous strength.
The Lava Giant, taken aback, was pushed back little by little.
Watching, Lloyd shouted.
“Good! Keep pushing!”
He cheered inwardly.
The Bone Dragon had appeared at the perfect moment to block the Lava Giant’s escape.
Honey practically dripped from Lloyd’s eyes as he looked at the youngest member of the Bone Corps.
‘Aigoo, that pretty thing!’
In truth, he hadn’t expected the Bone Dragon to appear at all.
He couldn’t have.
Four months ago—just before leaving the capital and crossing into Hell—he’d only given the order, “Hide in the sea north of the capital.”
He never imagined the Bone Dragon would follow that order so faithfully that it would travel all the way to the Arctic Ocean to hide.
‘And then, just a little while ago, I felt it approaching.’
The [Undead Domination Skill] that had subjugated the Bone Dragon.
The mutual location tracking function that skill provided.
Through it, he could feel it.
That the Bone Dragon was nearby.
That it was coming.
He was overjoyed.
So now?
It was time to finish off that Lava Giant that had turned the construction site into a mess.
“Javier! Let’s go!”
It was a general attack.
While the Bone Dragon held that bastard in place—while it couldn’t move far from the Hellgate, while its body was cooling down—they had to finish it off.
Only then could they complete the railway construction.
Only then could they reap benefits worthy of three months of effort.
With that single-minded determination, Lloyd gripped the shovel handle.
He urged Ggoming forward.
He coordinated with Javier on the ground.
From then on, they charged the Lava Giant.
They poured in a fierce assault.
They didn’t discriminate in means or methods.
‘Thump!’
Detonation and Triple Blast were the basics.
They aimed for joints—knees, ankles, waist.
It was cheap, but they even blasted those areas on purpose.
The Lava Giant flinched in surprise.
Of course, the damage was repaired quickly.
Because the lava hadn’t fully cooled yet.
But it didn’t matter.
‘If hitting doesn’t work, keep hitting until it does.’
All they had to do was hold it here until the lava fully cooled.
So even if it looked ineffective, they had to keep hammering it.
Cut it, dig into it, damage it as much as possible.
Because the polar wind blowing through the Hellgate would cool the Lava Giant faster.
‘Of course. When you’re eating soup that’s too hot, you don’t just stare at it and wait for it to cool. You stir it and blow on it so it cools faster.’
Same principle.
Punch holes with Detonation—pitter-patter.
Carve more holes with Javier’s Aura—pitter-patter.
Stab, pierce, cut.
As the Lava Giant’s body was damaged, the uncooled lava inside was exposed to cold wind.
And the heat cooled even faster.
Lloyd didn’t stop there.
To cool the Lava Giant’s heat, he mobilized every method he could think of.
Hamang was one of them.
“Hamang! You’ve been hot every day here, right?”
“Hamang?”
“Don’t you want to drink some ice water?”
“Hamang!”
“Then go and spray it here!”
He threw Hamang beyond the Hellgate.
From Hell to the skies above the Arctic Ocean.
Hamang crossed over in an instant, then plunged—plop—into the Arctic Ocean.
And happily gulped down the salty ice water.
“Hamang! Hamamang! Gulp-gulp-gulp!”
‘WHOOSH!’
Hamang’s body swelled to seventy meters in an instant.
The next moment, Hamang blasted water downward.
“Hmmumung!”
‘PWOOOSH!’
The violently spewed stream lifted Hamang’s body like a rocket, shooting it a hundred meters into the air.
Mid-flight, Hamang redirected the jet.
It fired straight toward the Lava Giant visible beyond the Hellgate.
‘SHOOOAAAH!’
Like cold tap water shot with deliberate aim through a hose.
Arctic Ocean ice water blasted through the Hellgate in a straight line.
It forced the Lava Giant—already pinned by the Bone Dragon and battered by cold wind—into a brutal cold shower.
– GURURURURUWAAARK! Achoo!
The Lava Giant’s sneezing intensified.
Steam bloomed explosively, and its body cooled at an even more rapid pace.
“Don’t stop! Keep going!”
Lloyd’s encouragement grew more fervent.
Javier’s assault grew more ruthless.
Hamang kept firing water.
The Bone Dragon tightened its grip and held on even harder.
The Lava Giant cooled in real time.
The bubbling recovery power that repaired its wounds cooled and slowed.
Its movements dulled.
As if freezing solid in merciless, bitter cold.
The surface—once bubbling crimson—hardened into black.
The interior visible through crack-crack splitting gaps darkened bit by bit.
And finally, the moment it was judged that the Lava Giant had cooled enough—
“Now!”
Lloyd shouted.
The Bone Dragon shoved the Lava Giant.
The pushed giant staggered backward.
For the first time, distance opened between the Bone Dragon and the Lava Giant.
Into that gap, Javier dove.
‘Crunch!’
He planted both feet on volcanic ash.
Cut through the faintly blooming heat.
And looked at the Lava Giant with a cool gaze.
……!
Without a sound.
Without even the chance to feel the flash—
Hundreds of streams of Aura engulfed the Lava Giant’s entire body.
And the next moment, messages began popping up in abundance before Lloyd’s eyes.
‘Ding-dong!’
[You have appropriately utilized flashing wit, unexpected luck, and the power of reliable allies. Thanks to this, you have succeeded in annihilating hell’s living natural disaster, <Lava Giant Dunkleos>.]
[This miraculous battle result bestows legendary praise upon you.]
[New praise directed at you has been generated.]
[New praise, <Hands So Cold Brr, Feet So Cold Brr> has been generated.]