Return of the Frozen Player

at knows anything, so I can't even predict anything either.
Do you have any idea?”

“It is the same for us.
Listening to the conversations earlier, it did not seem like the Big 6 were very certain either.”

“It’s a big problem.
We’re about to fight, and we don't know anything about the enemy…”

The expressions of the three turned dark.
At that moment, the door of the conference hall opened coolly, and an old man in a robe entered.
Of course, he wasn’t the emperor, the prince, or the princess.

“There are faces here that I haven’t seen in a long time, and there are faces I've never seen before.” Sitting naturally at the head of the table, he nodded.
“My name is Halo Agrim, the head court mage of the Ruben Empire.”

He was the head court mage! Toward the very high-ranking figure, the Players lowered their heads.

“Lift your heads.
Let's start the meeting.” As the Players sat down, he took out a magic crystal ball.
“It would be faster to look at it than to explain it with a hundred words.”

When he injected magic into the crystal ball, something like holographic images appeared in the air.
The location depicted in the images was an ordinary burial chamber.
The body lying there had dried up like a mummy.
Not a trace of life force could be felt from the body, and it was no different from a skeleton.

 

[Is this the dead body found near Blackfield…]

[The Schumern Saintess’s treatment has also failed.]

[It appears that it has been about a day since it died.]

 

The healers and priests surrounding the corpse looked at the chart containing the patient’s records.
All of a sudden, the corpse moved.

[Gweeeehk!]

The corpse's chest swelled, and the corpse jumped up before vomiting something.
The Players watched the video with narrowed eyes.

“Is that… an egg?”

“It looks like an insect’s egg, or like a fish egg.”

“We'll have to watch more if we want to find out.”

The corpse in the video staggered and got up.

[How can a c-corpse!?]

[Undead! It's definitely an undead!]

[Ask the knight outside the door for help first!]

The priests and the healers facing the moving corpse were thrown into an uproar.
After barely returning to their senses, a few priests chanted holy spells.
However, the corpse remained unscathed despite being hit by holy spells.

[It's not an undead!]

[Well, then how is a confirmed corpse moving—]

[Gwaaaahh!]

The corpse snatched the wrist of a nearby female healer.

[Ow, it hurts! Let me go!]

The healer begged with tears in her eyes as she was dragged by the corpse’s rough grasp.
When the priests and the healers were running about wildly—

Crack! Crack!

[Kyaaaaak!]

The corpse directly bit off and ate the healer's neck.
The healer screamed and fainted.
The knights ran in, split the corpse in half, and the video ended.

“…”

“…”

A heavy silence fell upon the conference room.
Son Chae-Won of the Silent Moon Guild barely managed to open her mouth to speak, “What was that just now? What…
A zombie or vampire? Is it something like that?”

“No, it’s not.” Halo shook his head.
“We call it a host.”

“Host? The host of what?”

“Bees.”

“…Bees?”

Murmur.

The Players looked at each other, and their expressions revealed the situation's absurdity.
Shin Sung-Hyun of the Goblin Guild raised his hand lightly.
“As far as I know, bees don't have the ability to infect other creatures like that.”

“That’s correct for the usual bees, but they're different.” Halo's expression distorted.
He looked like he was having trouble explaining all this.
“Originally, those bees are not creatures of this world.”

“Do you mean they are alien creatures?”

“In the first place, orcs, dwarves, elves, ogres, goblins, kobolds… They weren't all creatures of this world.
They're from the Gates.”

“I see…”

The Players understood and nodded their heads.
If that were the case, the 'bees' currently isolated in Blackfield should also be considered from beyond a Gate.

“The first archmage discovered their dangers early on.
He tried to eradicate their existence…
but he failed.”

“Are they that strong?”

“Beyond mere strength and weakness, they are tenacious and persistent.
They have an extraordinary attachment for the living.” Halo shook his head with a tired look.
“From now on, every word that comes out of this meeting is forbidden to be spoken outside.
If this is violated, it will be regarded as a violation of an imperial order.
Be prepared to be pursued by the Empire.”

Gulp.

The sound of gulping could be heard everywhere.
What on earth was he trying to say that he had to scare them so much?

“Their stingers have various effects.
There's an extreme poison that instantly kills the target, and as we saw in the video, there’s also the ability to lay eggs in living things and manipulate them as hosts.”

“How atrocious…”

“The good thing is that their population is very small.
A hundred at the most.”

“Thank god…”

The moment the Players showed a look of relief, Halo continued, “According to ancient books, it was like that hundreds of years ago.”

“…”

It had been about four hundred years since the first archmage established Blackfield.
No one knew how many of those bees were born in the meantime.

“In addition, Blackfield is not a small area.
During these hundreds of years, they must have turned the entire area into their turf.
The monsters and creatures beyond the Wailing Mountains should be considered to be under the bees’ control as well.”

The situation got worse the more Halo spoke.
As soon as everyone fell silent, Kim Woo-Joong asked, “How large is the crack in Blackfield?”

“We have dispatched the imperial knights and several thousands of soldiers to block it as much as possible.
It's at the size where an adult man can crawl through on his stomach.”

“It's small.”

“Yes.
The bees are three times the size of an adult male, so they can’t cross over it.
The man in the video is believed to have crawled into Blackfield out of curiosity, and he barely managed to survive.”

“Then how can we seal the crack?”

“…”

Despite having answered all the questions so far, Halo's mouth was tightly shut this time.
He closed his eyes with an expression that looked like the end times had arrived.

“I don't know.”

“…?!”

“That's the objective in the commission given to all of you.
Find a way to stop the crack from spreading, and seal it.”

Based on common sense, there was no way there was a method that the imperial family hadn’t done yet.
However, there was still one thing they hadn't done so far.

“They've done everything but go inside Blackfield…”

It was going into the unknown.