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Crunch, crunch.

I was munching on snacks one by one, tucked inside Yerin’s clothes.

The only sounds that echoed inside the car were the murmur of the wind and the noise of me eating the snacks.

My hands and feet were stuck inside Yerin’s clothes, so I couldn’t move, but it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable.

In fact, when I was with Yerin, it was rare for me to grab snacks directly.

I wondered how cold it was right now. It had been ages since I stopped being human, so I had lost my sense of it.

Looking at Yerin’s face, it didn’t seem too cold inside the car, but I had no idea what the temperature outside was like.

If the car had stopped, just how cold was it?

Would it need the gasoline to freeze for the vehicle to stop, or does it freeze at a higher temperature than that?

Or maybe Yerin just did a lousy job maintaining the car, and that’s why it stopped.

Outside, the blizzard obscured everything.

This must be what they call a whiteout.

How long do we have to stay here?

I felt bored, and the soft warmth made me drowsy.

*

The Reaper in my arms seemed to find our predicament in the snow boring and had fallen asleep.

About two hours after the Reaper dozed off, the blizzard subsided.

What lay beyond was a landscape that made me doubt we were truly in Seoul.

A world filled with snow.

While snow-covered landscapes could be seen quite often, the creatures roaming in this backdrop were definitely not common sights in Seoul.

Fluffy, hairy Yetis were wandering about.

They were quite well-known objects, often spotted by drones surveying Dobong-gu.

However, they were notoriously vicious, classified as dangerous objects.

Yet, since they hadn’t been contained or studied by the research institute, how dangerous they were or what their characteristics were remained entirely unknown.

As it stood, all that we knew was they were violent creatures that would throw ice or rocks upon seeing moving objects or animals.

Not wanting to be spotted by these murderous monsters, I held my breath, crouched down, and waited for the Yetis to pass by.

After what felt like ten hours—though it was merely ten breathless minutes—the ferocious-looking Yetis vanished somewhere.

Replacing them were adorable snowmen that stood around the height of the Reaper.

These snowmen were frolicking about, blowing bubbles of frost as if they were blowing soap bubbles.

They played beautiful music with xylophones made of ice and blew frozen bubbles with trumpets crafted from ice.

Their childlike, innocent behavior soon dulled my wariness towards these cute snowmen.

As characters straight out of a fairy tale roamed the radiant white snowfield, they painted a dreamlike scene.

When encountering an object I had never seen before and knew little about, fear was usually a given, but I didn’t feel particularly scared.

The snowmen didn’t appear to be harmful at all!

The warmth of the Reaper wriggling in my arms bolstered my courage even more.

Plus, those snowmen were quite slow and leisurely blowing bubbles, making them not particularly threatening objects.

In fact, they seemed a bit cute.

As I pondered this and gazed out the car window, I spotted a man clad in thick clothing stealthily passing by near the snowmen.

Doing that isn’t going to keep him from being noticed; what a foolish person.

Despite his sneaky approach, he was instantly spotted, but it didn’t lead to any dangerous situations.

However, realizing he had been spotted, the man frantically ran away, desperately trying to widen the gap between himself and the snowmen.

The seemingly docile snowmen noticed the escaping figure, but instead of threatening or chasing him, they merely continued with their frosty bubble play.

Just as I had anticipated, they turned out to be quite gentle.

But the snowmen this time emitted not cute bubbles but sharp needles.

“Gah!”

I couldn’t help but gasp and swallow hard.

Anyone would react that way if they saw someone explode in front of them.

As the needle shot at the man pierced through his body, it turned instantly into ice bubbles; what would happen if such a transformation occurred inside a human?

It would burst apart.

‘Ugh, another murder monster.’

Once again, I held my breath and had no choice but to lower my body and hide in the car while I waited for the snowmen to pass.

The fairytale-like, dreamy ambiance morphed into a cruel tale, and the courage that the Reaper had given me vanished like a bubble.

Reaper, please wake up quickly.

Please.

*

The sounds of explosions and gunfire jolted me awake.

As I took in my surroundings, I saw Yerin huddled low, shivering.

A gigantic eye was watching us from beyond the car window.

It was the eye of a colossal dove.

Startled by making eye contact with me, the dove flapped its wings and flew far away.

I pinched Yerin’s cheek to signal her that the situation was resolved.

“Oh, Reaper! You finally woke up! That was scary.”

Yerin, shaking with fear, tightly hugged me and began to whine.

I roughly patted her shoulder, trying to gauge the situation.

From the sound of the gunfire, it seemed that a large-scale rescue operation utilizing the military had begun.

I suspected soldiers would soon flood this place.

The dove, which had just flown away upon seeing me, was struck by a bomb mid-flight and was now dying while leaking its insides.

As many objects died or were destroyed, after some time, I could see tanks and armored vehicles rolling past me.

Following them were transport vehicles lined up, and one of these vehicles stopped, revealing Kim Jungrwi, who began to run towards us.

Already quite a hefty guy, Kim Jungrwi looked like a massive bear clothed in fur.

“Senior!”

Kim Jungrwi, without a word, handed Yerin some clothing to drape over her and guided us into the transport vehicle.

Inside the transport vehicle were armed soldiers.

Of course, since this was the long-awaited war with the Ice Throne of Dobong-gu that had started again after ten years, it was only natural.

I felt reassured that Yerin would be safe now.

Then that meant I should go punch the Ice Throne that tormented Yerin.

*

In front of the walls of Dobong-gu stood numerous ice-armored golems or robots, smashing buildings with perfect order.

Like farmers planting rice.

The Ice Soldiers were smashing down the buildings and compacting them to create a gigantic path.

Something massive seemed to be clearing the way, but it was unclear what it was for.

The soldiers making the path were nearly 20 meters tall, but there was one puzzling point.

Those unrealistically sized soldiers did not appear to be objects.

The armor seemed to be made of ordinary ice, and the machinery pulsating inside the ice was made of regular metal.

However, with my shallow knowledge, I had no idea whether it was possible to maintain such massive forms or if such heavy objects could move without an object to assist them.

Perhaps if it were impossible, they might be receiving support from an object’s powers.

*

As I reached the threshold of the Dobong-gu barrier, I spotted a meteor made by humans gracefully streaking across the sky.

Was the rescue of the people finally over? A massive airstrike was commencing.

Missile strikes were following one after another.

The ice soldiers were shattered helplessly under the missile attacks.

It was just like footage captured during the operation to recapture Dobong-gu ten years ago.

The intense heat from the explosions melted the ice armor enveloping the soldiers, and the internal metal framework bent and crumbled into scrap.

The ice soldiers dissipated helplessly, and it appeared that the victory of modern technology was within reach.

However, the following scene replicated what had happened ten years prior.

The soldiers began to regenerate in an instant.

The soldiers’ steel frames reconstituted themselves as if rewinding time, and the ice armor quickly refroze over them.

Of course, humans are not fools.

They wouldn’t repeat what had already proven useless a decade ago.

The sole purpose of those missiles and shells was clear.

They seemed aimed at obstructing the soldiers from clearing the way in Dobong-gu.

It was hard to see the sudden assault of the Ice Throne soldiers and what they were making in their advance as unrelated.

To stop their advance, they were pouring shells.

Naturally, the number of shells was finite, while those soldiers’ regeneration was infinite, making it merely a stall tactic.

Surely, they would meet their downfall just as they had when Dobong-gu was taken from them.

And the land would be robbed again, leaving humanity with even less space to survive.

Before that, I resolved to destroy the Ice Throne and help reclaim Dobong-gu.

For small reasons, it was Yerin’s revenge.

For larger reasons, I still needed humanity deeply.

Even without the burning firewood in my heart, I needed humanity.

The snacks I ate.

The TV I watched.

So many enjoyable things were essential to me.

That was why I walked against the backdrop of a battlefield where bombs fell, heading toward the Ice Throne.