Iru-da was not the only one who lost all reason over the safety of his partner.

"You're telling me to clear the sea."

"Yes, even with every cold-type Hunter gathered here, dealing with the sea is still difficult... We are desperate for even one more Hunter. I understand that you are upset, but please lend us a hand."

"Then."

Yu Seongun asked with a smile.

"Will permission to enter the dungeon be granted?"

His eyes were not smiling.

"... It probably will."

"Probably?"

"Almost certainly."

"Almost?"

"Hunter Yu Seongun."

The Association employee sighed as if he understood.

"You know how it is. In a situation like this, we can't send out only one Hunter separately. I know Hunter Yu Seongun is capable, but clearing a dungeon with a humanoid monster as the boss would be difficult solo."

"If you just send me in, I'll get only Hunter Seo Jio out and come back. Yes, that is what I want to do, but the Association won't grant permission for it. So you're saying we should proceed with the whole operation?"

"Many Hunters have already died or been injured, and many Hunters are missing as well. At a time like this, if we make an exception just for Hunter Yu Seongun, how are we supposed to explain it to the other Hunters? Please calm down and..."

"I understand."

Yu Seongun accepted it too.

"Then please give me a firm assurance that permission to enter will be granted as soon as the sea is cleared."

"... I will bring it up with the Association again. The understanding was that we would proceed as soon as the cleanup reaches the minimum level needed to carry out a diversionary operation, so it should be possible."

"I hope we get a definite answer before the cleanup is completely finished."

"The sea's movements are unusual. It seems the initiative is gradually passing to the monsters, so please be careful."

"I know very well that I'm manpower you'd hate to lose."

He had no intention of dying already, when he had not even properly analyzed Jio's Portrait yet.

"Let's start right away."

It was easy to say "clear," but there was no way it could be as simple as cleaning a room.

The Hunters had to freeze massive waves that moved like living creatures, and deal with all sorts of marine life and monsters inside them that were showing signs of frenzy.

'What a pain.'

And only after establishing a barrier against all this seawater could they say the "cleanup" was finished.

Yu Seongun was dispatched to the scene immediately.

"Hunter Yu Seongun!"

Many Hunters recognized Yu Seongun, who was famous for his cold-type abilities. Hunters tended to be very interested in Hunters who handled the same element as they did. Yu Seongun opened his mouth with his usual easygoing smile.

"Where should I start?"

"Freeze everything in sight."

"Are you insane? How are you planning to clean this up afterward?"

"Your language has gotten rough. I heard you flipped out after Hunter Seo was kidnapped."

"Get to the point."

"We'll have to spend money, what else?"

Rather than nibbling at the edges while worrying about the funds that would be drained by the cleanup later, this was a situation where going big from the start, prepared to write an incident report, would be far cheaper.

"If we delay any longer, it'll leave the coast and move inland. I don't know if the seawater's gone crazy, but it's trying to crawl inward like a snake. And that's not even mentioning the monsters caused by the hail..."

"So stopping it at the coastline is the top priority?"

"More or less. It's not as if we can block the water with our hands, feeding it to plants doesn't work well because it's seawater, and even if we put up a huge wall, it climbs over like a monkey, so the only thing left is freezing it."

"Are we not using fire-type Hunters?"

"That side is already in chaos, and they're far too inefficient as manpower for stopping a tsunami of this scale. Don't get snide for no reason, and let's get into the sea already."

"Well, this is..."

SHAAAK!

Cold gathered at Yu Seongun's feet, and soon became blades.

"This job has gone to hell."

TAP!!

He tapped the ground with the toe of his shoe, which had transformed into a skate.

At that moment, Yu Seongun's figure vanished. He immediately rode up the massive barrier and leaped into the sea beyond it. Along the path he traveled, a smooth sheet of ice built up thickly, becoming another barrier.

"..."

WHOOSH!!

Just before he fell beneath the high barrier, Yu Seongun surveyed the situation from the air.

'One supermassive, six large, thirty-two medium.'

The rest of the miscellaneous small ones were not Yu Seongun's responsibility.

"Haa..."

FWOOSH...!!

As he fell rapidly, he thought.

'I want to clock out.'

CRAAAAACK!!!!!

Yu Seongun set foot on the "ground."

From where he stepped, a massive, solid "glacier" formed, the sort one might see only in the polar regions.

That terrible cold spread across the surface of the sea and even below it, freezing the rolling waves in an instant. The Hunters who confirmed the thunderous roar shouted.

"Fuck, reinforcements!"

"Save us, the sea is fucking awful...!!"

"Whoa, an A-class is here! Make way! Hurry up and make way!!"

"You clueless idiots, make way if you don't want to freeze to death!!!"

The Hunters who recognized Yu Seongun moved far aside, and Yu Seongun sped through the gap between them, freezing the sea as he went.

High-ranking Hunters who handled cold skillfully wore skates like the ones Yu Seongun was using now.

If used well, they could increase one's speed, and the blades could also be used as weapons. There was even a joke that South Korea before The Great Catastrophe had once been famous for figure skating, and perhaps this was its influence.

'It is true that they're useful.'

A cold wind brushed his cheek.

He put strength into his legs and lightly executed a single axel. He smoothly leaped over the warped, shaking sheet of ice, and CRACK!! spun as he cut down a monster. He landed as he was. A single spin. He avoided an obstacle, and moved again.

He raced forward quickly and BANG!!! drove his spear into the ice before leaping upward. He struck a monster down with a vertical rotation, then used the rebound to rise into the air. The bodily fluids of the monster sliced by the skate blade froze and fell in clattering pieces.

It was a repetition of the same work, with only slight variations. He secured smoothness with the skates, and destructive power with the spear. He advanced, leaped, struck down, cut, landed, and advanced again.

'The work itself isn't difficult. It's simple labor.'

TAP, TAP!!

He moved with footwork, dodging multiple monsters. CLANG!! When he struck down, spears shot up from the ice, and a monster was impaled. Blood sprayed.

Yu Seongun knew well what he had to do here. The monsters frozen along with the ice paths he created as he passed broke apart the glaciers and caused a commotion, but other Hunters dealt with them.

"..."

But that did not mean the situation would end there.

'The sea is vast.'

And deep.

'It isn't something that will end just because one person does something.'

Even if Yu Seongun begged and scraped to draw on the garden's power, he could not freeze all the oceans on this planet. Considering Earth's survival, he must not do so either, because it would become impossible to recover.

'But if it's just a little...'

Yu Seongun once again drew out a long spear of ice, gripped it in his hand, and BANG!!! struck the ground, using the recoil to fly into the sky.

"... Hoooo."

Floating in the air, he aimed the ice spear at the eye of a large monster.

And stabbed.

"..."

BOOM!!!

The monster's body burst apart.

"... Ptoo, ptoo."

SCREECH.

After turning once and stopping on the ice, Yu Seongun spat out the ice shards that had gotten into his mouth.

"Ugh, salty."

The combination of monster bodily fluids and seawater could not help but be salty.

After brushing off the unmelted pieces of ice, Yu Seongun lightly worked his skates and began to move swiftly over the surface of the sea again. Wherever he went, massive glaciers formed and monsters froze.

But this was something the other A-class Hunters were continuing to do as well.

'It's repeating. A vicious cycle.'

Yu Seongun was especially famous as a Hunter who created huge, solid ice, glaciers of the pole. But even though every capable cold-type Hunter here had gathered, the sea kept breaking and surging again and again.

'Then there is only one answer.'

They had to annoy the "master" of these waves enough to make it come out on its own.

"It's my specialty."

CRACK. SPLASH!!!

Yu Seongun broke the ice and entered the sea.

'What will happen if all these many monsters here come to contain cold?'

The cleanup would become more difficult, but that was not something Yu Seongun needed to feel sorry about. After all, the work related to that was a problem for the future Yu Seongun to solve through overtime and wage cuts.

'And if this is effective...'

Yu Seongun thought of the Gardener Jeong Youngwon, who must have joined this war.

'We should be able to make things very annoying for them.'

He grinned as he watched the marine monsters approach him. In water like this, a human, a land creature, would be at a severe disadvantage, but the story changed if one was a Gardener of a snowy field whose very soul was frozen.

A Gardener was a worker who managed the seeds and fruits of a garden.

"..."

Would any monster not be troubled if another garden bloomed inside its body?

Yu Seongun drove an ice knife into his own body and dragged it through. At the sweet scent of blood, the monsters opened their mouths wide.

'Let's see how far we can take this.'

Crimson snow flowers bloomed in the sea.

"Hunter Yu Seongun has gone missing!!"

The Hunters on the coast beyond the barrier, who had withdrawn with injuries, began murmuring.

"What? Hunter Yu Seongun, where did he..."

"A Hunter who can make that much ice shouldn't fail to take care of himself in the sea, should he?"

"But we confirmed that he fell into the sea! Shouldn't we rescue him?!"

"If you're calling him missing, that means some time has passed since he fell in, doesn't it?"

"I know you're busy, but I thought we should still inform you..."

"No, how many Hunters are missing right now?"

Even so, there was no suitable manpower they could send to rescue a single Hunter right now. Even more so if it was a Hunter who had fallen into the sea. In a situation like this, each person had no choice but to survive and get out on their own.

At that, healer Jeong Youngwon, who was receiving treatment in the rear, asked.

"Did he fall into the sea, or did he go into the sea?"

"What? Th-that is... I don't really..."

"I think he probably went in."

A Gardener did not die easily unless they were devoured by the Root.

"Look at the sea more carefully. Rather than the safety of a single individual named Yu Seongun, if you grasp the state of the sea more broadly, it will be easier to understand what is happening."

"What do you mean by that..."

"..."

Jeong Youngwon blinked and said.

"... The sound is quieting down."

"What sound are you talking about when it's this noisy?"

"Don't look at it narrowly. Look at the bigger picture. The sound of the sea's waves breaking is gradually decreasing."

"That is..."

"There we go."

Jeong Youngwon snorted and turned away.

"You can leave that man alone. He's doing just fine by himself."

"B-but...! If something happens to Hunter Yu Seongun, it will disrupt the work!"

"I said he's doing just fine by himself, didn't I?"

And soon, several Hunters also sensed the change.

"...? No, wait..."

"The sound really is...?"

It happened in an instant.

"..."

"..."

The inside of the barrier became so quiet it felt chilly, truly in the blink of an eye.

"... What on earth?"

"Looks like he froze more or less all of it."

With the faint roars of monsters as background, Jeong Youngwon said.

"Everyone go work. Hunt monsters."

"Ah, yes?"

"And catch Hunter Yu Seongun too."

"You mean Hunter Yu Seongun?"

"I'm sure he'll be sprawled out somewhere."

Sure enough, a Hunter from the front soon came running in a panic.

"Healer! A healer!! A healer!!"

"Put him down."

Hunter Yu Seongun had been carried in, covered in blood.

'It seems his garden has grown.'

Jeong Youngwon understood what Yu Seongun had done. While treating Yu Seongun's wounds after he was laid on the cot in the tent, she checked his consciousness. Then their eyes met exactly.

Yu Seongun grinned.

"Not bad, right?"

"You must have grown a lot."

"I've been feeling cold lately, like I was coming down with chills..."

"This is a greater power than when I saw you last time."

"I drank a lot of good tea."

And wouldn't you know it, the garden kept growing vigorously.

"..."

"The whole sea has frozen!!"

"I told you to go work, didn't I?"

"Ah, yes, yes...!!"

There was no longer the sound of the ice and glaciers the Hunters had created together breaking and colliding. Instead, there was only the heavy noise of lumps of flesh trapped between them, roaring or flopping.

'Even taking into account that it's much quieter beyond the barrier, this is impressive.'

At this point, almost all the sea within sight had to be frozen.

'All the way through.'

Jeong Youngwon knew what Yu Seongun had done.

"Was it effective?"

"Freezing is usually like that."

Once a seed forms somewhere, it only grows larger and larger.

"It solidifies in an instant."

Yu Seongun had used his own body as a "seed" and fed it to the many monsters in the sea. The marine monsters that took in his terribly cold blood froze in an instant, freezing the sea from the inside out.

Since it was none other than the cold of the Root, there was no need to say more about its effect.

"I thought it would be easier to start from the inside than to attack only the outside."

"It certainly seems so, seeing how comfortable my ears have become."

"There are still many places I couldn't freeze, and there was a limit to how far the garden's cold could spread into the deep sea..."

"I understand."

"Still, since the other Hunters had frozen it first, the speed definitely increased."

If Yu Seongun had tried to lower the temperature of the sea from the beginning and create that vast glacier, it would have taken an incredibly long time, and his own capacity would have fallen short, but the fact that capable Hunters had already stepped in and lowered the temperature of the sea considerably had been a great help.

He had merely created a plausible starting point in a sea that was just on the verge of becoming ice.

"It had some effect, right?"

"It did, but it must have placed a heavy burden on you."

A Gardener managed them inside the garden, and would be punished for smuggling them outside.

"Is that how worried you were... about Hunter Seo Jio?"

"How could I not be worried in a situation like this?"

Yu Seongun knew the mermaids' greed.

"If things go wrong, the Root may be moved."

The mermaids' obsession was beyond what Yu Seongun had imagined.

Though they did not possess divinity, they had built up enormous achievements that must have drawn the attention of many evil gods until now, and there was a real possibility they could do something to Jio, who had become far weaker because he was not in the portrait.

"So I had to push myself a little. How long will it take to recover from this?"

"Those damn damage dealers must have brains the size of chickens. How can you say that in this state? A healer is not a treatment vending machine. It doesn't just pop out at the press of a button."

"No, do you think I don't know that? I'm asking roughly how long. I'm just purely asking about the time period."

"Because of the aftermath of the garden, treatment in a short period of time is impossible. Even if I put more effort into it, I won't be able to completely deal with the aftereffects. However..."

Jeong Youngwon was a fairly decent healer.

"If Hunter Seo Jio is in danger, I will risk divine punishment too."

And she was a fairly decent Gardener.

"I will borrow the flower garden's power."

"I'm grateful for that."

"If you know that, then bring Hunter Seo back safely."

The eyes of the Root had gloriously put down roots on Earth. It was a situation that any Gardener serving their own garden could not help but covet, and Jeong Youngwon in particular was a human who revered the Root as her divinity.

"If he is safe, the flower garden will be pleased too."

A soft balsam-pink color tinted Jeong Youngwon's fingertips.

It was the power of life, drawn from the flower garden.

"..."

"... Hello..."

"Haha."

Jio said with a smile.

"Could you let this slide?"

"What? This child who is obviously covered in the power of the Sun?"

Aria also smiled, her eyes curving.

"I'm so jealous I want to tear him into five pieces."

"But he is my first believer..."

"When you put it that way, killing him becomes a little awkward."

Aria hummed and stroked her chin.

"Well, this fight isn't Teacher's fight, after all."

"That is why you set me aside in such a remote place, is it not?"

"Of course, I did intend to satisfy my own desires, but if things have turned out this way, it can't be helped."

She wore a courteous smile worthy of a gentleman of high society.

"I can use him as a cute hostage, can't I?"

"Please make sure he isn't hurt."

"Don't worry. As long as Teacher keeps us in a good mood, Cha Yisol won't have so much as a single downy hair harmed."

"And there you go, talking like a villain again..."

"I am one of the most notorious villains across dimensions, after all."

Cha Yisol was horrified by their conversation.

"Jio hyung will get hurt because of me??"

"Do not worry, little gentleman. He will absolutely not be hurt."

"B-but just now...!"

"Knowing too much will get you hurt."

"I-I'm sorry I barged into your home without permission...! I'll stay quiet! Please don't make Jio hyung hurt!"

"How adorable. But no."

Aria looked at Giovanni.

"It's about time I start the work. The sea has begun freezing over to a degree my cute children can no longer handle. Before the person in charge of this incident leaves the temple... I should do what needs to be done."

She stroked her Teacher's cheek.

"Are you ready to return to the sea?"

"Oh, you poor thing..."

Jio leaned his face into that hand.

"You need my mercy."

"Of course, Teacher."

Mermaids always desired the mercy of the Sun.