* * *
“These things don’t look like they’ve been here for that long.”
Do Soohyuk spoke as he lightly kicked at the scattered items on the ground.
The fact that everything was still intact likely meant the situation had ended before any looters could even show up.
Considering the monsters we’d encountered so far, it wasn’t surprising.
The place probably got wiped out in an instant.
“Taking down those monsters is out of the question. What’s the actual clear condition here?”
There wasn’t much we could do in this extreme situation.
Even moving around wasn’t easy, so we had no real ideas.
Soohyuk fell silent, gazing out the window as if deep in thought.
“Should we go into the storage room for now? This place has way too many glass windows…”
Even if snow beasts had poor visibility, the convenience store being right next to the road made me uneasy.
I pointed toward the storage room door that had just caught my eye, and Soohyuk stepped in first without a word.
“Tweet, tweet.”
I grabbed my chirping companion—currently gnawing frantically on an almond—and hurried in after him.
“It’s untouched in here.”
Surprisingly, the storage room was completely intact, as if no outsiders had broken in.
It was a tight space, barely enough for two people, but one corner had a computer and a chair—an area clearly meant for resting.
I sat on the chair and pulled a disposable heat pack out of my item pouch.
I had been proud of my merchant-like preparedness, but the only useful items I had left were a single-use heat pack and a wool seat cushion from our desert dungeon run.
Even those weren’t big, so I could only drape them over my lap at best.
I should’ve brought the owlbear fur coat.
But really, who could’ve predicted we’d get dumped into a dungeon like this?
“Do you want this to cover yourself?”
I wasn’t thrilled about it, thinking back to the desert, but since he’d saved me, I offered him my last wool seat cushion.
“I’m fine.”
But for whatever reason, Do Soohyuk chose to sit directly on the cold floor.
His ears were red and clearly freezing, yet he was being stubborn for no good reason.
Well, not like I minded having both cushions to myself.
“…It’s freezing.”
But that smug thought didn’t last five minutes.
Even with both cushions, my whole body started shivering like a leaf.
The cold air was so intense that the breath coming from my mouth clouded my vision.
Chirp…
My little companion curled up tighter, letting out a pitiful whimper.
He couldn’t even say he was cold, which made him look even more pitiful.
I couldn’t take it anymore and wrapped him in a heat pack, blowing warm breath over him.
But no matter how long I waited, the pack stayed lukewarm at best.
It just wouldn’t heat up beyond a certain point.
Of course. Just my luck.
I gave up and instead rolled the chirping fluffball up in the wool cushion like a kimbap.
Goosebumps shot up my spine and my legs trembled from the cold, but seeing his now-content expression brought me a little relief.
Click.
And then Do Soohyuk did something I couldn’t understand.
He pulled a Zippo lighter from his inner pocket and suddenly lit a cardboard box on fire.
Startled, I shot to my feet.
“Wait—can we light a fire?! Didn’t you say the snow beasts are sensitive to heat?”
“Better than freezing to death, wouldn’t you say?”
He acted like it was no big deal, casually gesturing at the flames.
Still, wasn’t this risky?
While I hesitated, the fire spread quickly through the cardboard.
It wasn’t a huge flame, but the warmth spread fast.
What the hell—weren’t you just acting like the cold didn’t bother you?
He didn’t even have the slightest tremble in his hands.
I thought he was handling it fine, but clearly, I was wrong.
I guess even someone considered beyond human wasn’t immune to the cold once their powers were gone.
All that stoicism, and now he was finally acting a little human.
“We need to keep the fire small. Come closer.”
“Ah…”
I hesitated for a moment before inching over, pretending I had no choice.
With the monsters distracted elsewhere, warming ourselves up was the logical move.
Heating the space and then quickly putting the fire out was probably our best shot at survival for now.
No choice, really.
I lowered myself by the fire, maintaining a reasonable distance, and tried to warm my hands.
Then I heard his voice again, low and quiet.
“Closer.”
“….”
Hmm.
I kept being hyper-aware of his presence, so I couldn’t bring myself to get closer.
Efficiency-wise, we should’ve been huddled up together, but for some reason, my feet wouldn’t move.
As I stood there hesitating, Do Soohyuk gently reached out and pulled my hand.
Unlike earlier, when I’d nearly fallen on him, his touch was quiet and unhurried.
…Wait, why are his hands so warm?
I hadn’t noticed in the building before, but his hand—now touching mine—was unbelievably warm.
Maybe my hands were just especially cold, but it was almost strange how much warmth he still retained.
Maybe it had something to do with his control over black flame.
His base body temperature could just be naturally higher.
“….”
Wait a second. If he’s this warm, then we didn’t really need to risk lighting a fire, did we?
While I was still puzzling over it, I somehow ended up seated right in front of Soohyuk.
With our hands still joined, we were practically in a back-hug position.
My mind screamed with embarrassment, but my body stayed rooted, like it had taken root in the ground.
In fact, I clung to his hand more tightly, afraid he might let go. Instinct overtook reason.
Embarrassment lasted only a moment; little by little, I found myself leaning toward the warmth, shifting my body unconsciously.
The heat radiating from his back was so comforting, it was almost addictive.
Ah… so warm.
Judging by how stiff his body was, he probably wasn’t too thrilled about this whole situation.
But I had no intention of backing off now.
I averted my gaze and stared off into the distance.
After all, once you’ve felt this kind of warmth, there’s no going back.
“…What the hell is this? I was just on my way home.”
But even this couldn’t keep the harsh reality from setting in.
My dad was probably worried sick.
My return had already been delayed much longer than expected.
No one could’ve predicted I’d get sucked into an EX-grade dungeon mid-flight.
By now, Woo Jaehyun or Cha Rui were probably freaking out.
After all the effort they went through to get me back, I’d suddenly vanished into thin air again.
“Has it been ten days again this time…? That can’t happen.”
I went quiet, thinking of my dad hunched over on the sofa, waiting.
The thought sobered me.
I turned my head slightly, almost by habit, and flinched when my shoulder jerked up.
We were so close that I’d nearly bumped into Soohyuk’s face.
I’d been avoiding looking at him directly, so I hadn’t noticed—up close, I could see blood streaks on his cheek and soot smudges on his face.
The man who’d been so pristine in the desert now looked downright ragged after just a few hours.
“Here, wipe your face.”
Unable to stand it anymore, I pulled out a towel from my item pouch and handed it over.
For the first time, Soohyuk, who’d been expressionless the whole time, raised one corner of his mouth in a crooked grin.
A look of pure disbelief.
“I think you need to wipe your face first.”
Me?
I looked around, then peered at the glass window on one side.
My reflection, though faint, showed a face completely covered in black soot and dirt.
…Yeah, I wasn’t in any position to talk.
I hurriedly wiped my face, coughing awkwardly.
“Anyway, it’s an EX dungeon, so there must be a storyline, but I have no clue.”
No matter how hard I tried to think of what we could do here, my brain felt frozen.
All I could do was sigh.
In the middle of it all, my gaze kept drifting toward Do Soohyuk’s empty hand.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was wasting energy.
Stop looking. Stop.
As I scolded myself, Do Soohyuk’s expression grew more serious, as if he was deep in thought.
“Why? Do you have an idea?”
“Those monsters are A-rank. There’s probably a boss monster wandering around too. At least five of them, minimum.”
With those words, he naturally reached out and enclosed my floating hand in his.
I wondered if I’d made it too obvious, feeling a bit embarrassed—but as warmth spread through me, I couldn’t help but feel satisfied.
“Fighting them probably isn’t the clear condition.”
“Then what is?”
“Survival.”
The moment he said ‘survival’, it felt like I was smacked in the back of the head—I snapped to attention.
In dungeons, I’d always thought about pushing forward, never once about simply enduring.
“Maybe surviving here is the story. Since we’re the only survivors.”
‘The only survivors.’
Those words hit hard.
There wasn’t a single corpse on the streets, which gave us a pretty good idea of what the yetis’ appetite was like.
In an environment this brutal, with even an S-rank boss monster wandering around, was survival even realistic?
“If you’re right, then how long do we have to hold out?”
“At this rate, even if the monsters don’t get us, we might freeze to death tonight.”
“⋯⋯.”
I had no rebuttal.
He was right.
Forget about making it to tomorrow—I was more worried about just the next few hours.
As soon as the sun went down, this tiny flame wasn’t going to cut it.
I rubbed my forehead in despair, then suddenly glanced toward the open refrigerator.
Between the rows of drinks, I could just barely make out the outside through the glass.
Something out there was moving toward us.
No—running toward us.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
And it wasn’t just one or two of them.
* * *
