Chapter 364

“Yoii~ Hoyii~ Who’s this, huh~? Did our little missy come all the way here to see this big brother? Kikihihi!”

Croulli raised his sunglasses onto his forehead and chuckled.

His gestures, while looking at Ram Hwajeong, weren’t exactly delightful as he playfully moved his waist.

“...Filthy pervert.”

“Whoa, no way! Are you gonna talk to big bro like that? Weren’t we on the same side once? Isn’t that right?”

“No luck there.”

“Were you chickening out? Where were you? When we were fighting those guys, you were all buddy-buddy with me, and now you’re coming out like this? Huh? Did you forget the fun times we had back then—”

“Ice Spear.”

Ram Hwajeong didn’t wait.

As her near-instant casting skill was invoked, a beautiful ice lance shot out.

Swhooosh—!

“Eudadaadat, you, you scum!”

Kwaaah──────!

Croulli ran away while shouting, and a giant hand burst out from the ground where he had been standing.

Ram Hwajeong’s Ice Spear couldn’t even match the size of one of its fingers.

“Hehehe, you didn’t know about this, did you? Come on, get up, get up, you scum! Shall we first make that cute lady unable to move~?”

The makeshift golem, made from the remains after the destruction of City Gaza, was still in existence.

Thud, thud,

Rocks and gravel scattered as the ground slowly began to rise. Croulli had fled to the banks of the Tino River near City Gaza.

His reason for fleeing to the riverside was precisely to hide this golem. More than half of the massive golem’s body was submerged in the river.

Hwooooor──────!

A giant golem, about 14 meters tall, roared.

From its head to the water flowing at the top, it appeared surprisingly sturdy for a name like “scum.”

“How about that?! This is my masterpiece! With the right weapon, our scum can even take down a dragon 1:1—”

“Rubbish. Ice Wall. Ice Blast.”

Neither the overwhelming form of the giant golem nor Croulli’s noisy interference could change Ram Hwajeong’s expression.

She simply spoke her impression and immediately executed a double cast.

Quachachachachat—!

An ice wall sprang forth from the golem’s chest.

“Hoooot?! The golem is receiving ‘earth’ classification? Wasn’t that magic supposed to be usable on the ground?”

In an instant, a massive chunk of ice shot out to counter the frozen wall.

Ice Blast, showcasing a cold even more overwhelming than Ice Spear, collided with Ice Wall. The golem staggered momentarily, but that was it.

“Kyahahahat! That won’t do! You can’t just kill our scum like that!”

Proudly shouting, Croulli’s words were met with ice pieces breaking and scattering around the golem’s chest.

It was then that Ram Hwajeong’s true magic was unleashed.

“Freezing.”

Hwiiiiiii....

A magic that froze specific parts.

Though not an offensive spell, it was a status-altering magic. Every single piece of the Snowflake Mage’s magic acted as a refrigerant.

And the state of the golem?

The massive scum golem still had water flowing through various parts of its body, and Ram Hwajeong’s frozen magic fragments were scattering around that water.

“What’s this now...”

Kwadddddd, kwadddddd──────!

In short, a perfect environment for freezing.

Croulli stared at his golem with a bewildered expression.

He had seen ice crack and shatter many times, but this spreading and forming of ice was something he had never seen before.

Ice Wall rising, starting from the point of impact of Ice Blast, and every wet area of the golem began to freeze.

The time it took for around 70% of the 14-meter tall golem’s body to freeze completely didn’t even exceed two minutes.

Upon seeing the massive and slow golem, she had an instinctual link attack, realizing that parts of its physical form were subject to an ‘earth’ classification.

Her rapid and daring decision-making, a trait of the Middle Earth prodigy she was known as, was something that only she could execute.

Backwards.

“A backstep?! Uwah! Casting Blizzard while moving with backsteps?”

Croulli exclaimed.

Of course, he was well aware of Ram Hwajeong’s excellence. However, her movements now were beyond just excellent; they were astonishing to the point that saying they were impressive wasn’t enough.

Even simple moving casting while walking was first-class. Running while casting moving magic was ranker-level. But what could you call it when you cast while running, not just forward, but backward?

With each step of her sparrow-like legs on the gravel field by the riverside, her body rapidly moved backward, as if she were becoming a ranger.

The stone golems, slow by nature, were now somewhat faster, but even the scum golem couldn’t keep up with her speed.

What about the Blizzard that didn’t budge?

She kept checking the target and the range of the magic as she backstepped, ensuring a safe distance to retreat her body.

“Kiiit, no! Where are you going? Give me that mana! Show me that refrigerant!”

Only then did Croulli sense a dangerous aura and hurriedly started running, but it was already after all of Ram Hwajeong’s body had absorbed the blue particles.

“Get lost.”

Paaah──────!

Raising both her arms to the sky, she released her mana.

Hail and snowstorm began to pour down from the sky in an instant.

“Khihik—! My, my golems, Jeeeeng—Ramhwa-jeeeooong—!”

Croulli poured thawing potion into his body in a hurry and dashed forward, but Blizzard’s strong winds wouldn’t allow it.

Whooosh—!

“Nooh, nooooot—! My goooooleeems! Ooh, aaack?!”

Wanting to escape far from Croulli to grab Ram Hwajeong, even the scum golem found it impossible. The golems gradually froze and stopped, and he found himself in an environment where he couldn’t leave either.

His playful expression turned grim.

“She said you won’t come...! This is a mess!”

After pouring thawing potion, Croulli threw various vials from his bag in a haphazard manner.

Vials that flew randomly in the blizzard, vials that collided with falling hail and shattered, vials that stuck into the ground...

Crack, crack!

The sound of glass breaking and various chemicals enveloped Croulli’s surroundings.

“I should have collected them for research, but... Well, you know, if you keep messing around with a girl for a while, it’s not something that can’t be resolved, right? Get up, get up, ice fairies—keh!”

Scattering mana with his arms spread out, Croulli’s body staggered from a hailstone impact.

But there was no way that a single hit would kill him.

Mana that had escaped from his surviving body flowed neatly into the vials he had scattered around.

Splash— Plaplaplap...

Strange noises started coming from the air at that moment.

While Blizzard’s strong winds were still ongoing, the blizzard that would have completely obscured the vision and hailstones that were large enough to knock someone out with a single hit had calmed down all of a sudden.

“...My mana....”

Not only had they calmed down, but the hail and snowballs had also converged.

This was quite shocking for Ram Hwajeong too. Her mana was becoming her opponent’s strength?!

“D-did it work?! Oh, yeah! Good! Now, ha, hehe, you have the mana of that girl! Use ice magic or whatever to your heart’s content!”

A type of golem made of ice.

In some sense, it was the worst monster for Ram Hwajeong.

“Ice Spear, Ice Spear.”

Swoosh, swoosh—!

Sharp ice spears flew through Blizzard’s strong winds, but it was all in vain. All it did was create more mud puddles from the mud splashed by the ice spears.

“Nnngh—! Gguh—!”

Squelch, squelch.

As the Ice Spears vanished, the size of the ice golem increased. The Ice Spears had been absorbed by the ice golem.

“Would the mana made of the same refrigerant be effective, I wonder? Kuhahaha! Damn it! I should have collected the refrigerant before throwing the vials!”

Croulli was disappointed that he had used up all his vials.

“Now, go, ice go—”

Swoosh—!

When Croulli shouted in joy at the success of his experiment, his disappointment, his persistent insanity, it was already 15 minutes later.

Ram Hwajeong used teleportation without any hesitation.