Somewhere in the Snowfield Spetsotrad Base.
Had ten seconds passed since arriving at the coordinates the client had written down?
*Thud!*
"Kuaaaaaaah!!"
Momomo, who had fallen to her knees, screamed.
The client hadn't been lying.
He valued his own life too much to gamble on a bluff.
Here, various treasures including gold had been piled up.
To be more precise, it was assumed they *had* been piled up.
That is, until the powerful clay bullets rained down.
"You stupid explosion bastaaaaards!!"
Momomo sprang to her feet and executed a devastating roundhouse kick.
Had she been secretly training with Renya behind our backs?
Her form was incredibly clean.
"What are you doing, Piggy Momo?"
Of course, being clean didn't mean it landed.
He must have anticipated Momomo's reaction based on past experience.
Cancho, hidden and standing far away.
"Yaaaaaah!!"
*Whoosh, whoosh. Whirrr.*
Several more kicks were thrown after that, but all in vain.
Momomo, the wind fighter, only struck the empty air.
"Phew! I'm totally exhausted!"
Momomo wiped the sweat from her forehead with a refreshed expression.
They say exercise is good for relieving stress; it must be true.
She walked inside and examined the melted remains.
This stuff seemed pointless to take.
"How is it, Momo? Anything worth salvaging?"
"Just a second!"
Momomo closed her eyes, clasped her hands behind her back, and began to walk slowly.
*Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff!!*
Momomo flared her nostrils and scanned the area.
Her unique trait, the Scent of Treasure.
The capable Momomo could smell treasure if it was nearby.
She spent a good while roaming around the storage room.
"Yaaaaaah!!"
The fighter pig flew through the air once more, splitting the void.
*Thud!*
Momomo, face-down on the floor, turned her head toward me.
"There's nothing! It's a total bust!"
I nodded and walked toward the far wall.
It was the area that had been somewhat spared from the blast radius.
All that remained were some soot-stained documents.
I picked up the nearest one and examined it.
The word "TOP SECRET" was written in large Russian letters across the front.
"Hmm."
I rubbed my chin.
Operation Desert Viper.
It seemed to be a secret operation carried out by Spetsotrad.
It wasn't an intuitive treasure like gold or silver, but maybe it was even better?
"Mooomooook!!"
"Why are you calling... *pant! pant!* calling me!"
Emperor Momo came running and slammed on the brakes.
She'd been swinging her steamed-bun fists nonstop, trying to beat up Cancho, and was completely drenched in sweat.
"Let's take everything here."
"What is this stuff! Paper isn't expensive!"
Momomo rubbed her chubby chin, her Golden Eyes sparkling.
Golden Eyes could assess the value of objects.
But since it couldn't grasp the value of information written on paper, it was hard to tell right now what was useful and what wasn't.
So, let's just take it all.
"We might be able to turn it into money later."
"I like money! We have to take it!"
Momomo dashed off with a *swoosh* and started scanning the walls.
She moved her hands at an invisible speed, stuffing the documents away.
When it came to packing things up, Momomo was unbelievably fast.
"Look at Piggy Momo's cheeks jiggling. She just ate over thirty sweet potatoes with Nia earlier."
I looked down at Cancho, who had come up beside me.
Judging by the dark fur around his mouth, he'd eaten his fair share too, but he was talking as if it had nothing to do with him.
"All packed!"
I gave him a thumbs-up.
I'd find out what information was in there later.
I dismissed Momomo's manifestation and used Stealth.
Presences were drawing closer.
When I went outside, I saw an army swarming like a pack of dogs.
They seemed pretty angry.
"They couldn't have escaped! Search every inch!"
"There's no way they vanished without a trace in this snowfield! Track every footprint leading out!"
As expected of a search unit.
Their attention to detail was impressive.
I reduced my weight with the Shoes of Hermes and glided forward.
Even with reduced weight, the deep snow left footprints if I wasn't careful.
*Woof, woof, woof!*
The barking of dogs from all directions startled me for a moment, but...
"No problem! When the blizzard is strong, even if they catch the scent, they can't pinpoint the location!"
I was reassured by our excellent Yordle Ranger's insight.
I glided along like I was ice skating and looked back over my shoulder.
"Cancho, how do you know all that? Did the Yordle Forest have tracking dogs or search dogs too?"
"I've done it myself when tracking!"
It finally clicked.
When we went to catch Grandpa Toto, he'd had his nose pressed to the ground.
Since it was from real experience, it felt even more reliable.
After moving a bit further, I spoke up.
"But I think you need to dismiss your manifestation, Cancho."
Even though he was in Stealth, maybe because of his fluffy fur, snow was piling up and starting to reveal his Yordle form.
"Eep?! Yordle Ranger Cancho is retreating!"
*Poof!* Cancho disappeared.
I was a little bored now that my chatty friend was gone, but sometimes this kind of silence wasn't so bad.
'I wonder how far I need to go before I can ride.'
I couldn't crawl to the border at this turtle's pace.
Once I got out of the encirclement, I planned to ride the board I'd gotten from Ziyou at the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and descend.
'This'll be fun.'
A ski resort I'd never been to because the cost was too much.
I'd never ridden a snowboard because of it, but it'll be fine, right?
It'll probably be fine.
Even if I fall, I won't break anything.
Humming a tune, I moved forward.
This pointless encirclement.
Just hurry up and end.
* * *
While Jinhyuk was escaping the encirclement and riding the board.
Lieutenant General Dmitry Orlov, who was commanding the search, swung his fist.
The hill shattered into pieces.
The nearby soldiers swallowed dryly.
"What? Report that again."
# All search squads that formed the encirclement have gathered. There was nothing on the way here.
"There must be a place we missed."
# General. This is Uchinsky.
Dmitry's direct adjutant and one of Russia's top combatants, Uchinsky.
He was a trustworthy man, so Dmitry took a breath and spoke.
"Go on."
# We checked everything, even the internal blueprints of the base, and searched every room, including the bathrooms. There's nothing.
"Are you saying a company-sized force just evaporated?"
# They might have used a different escape route, like teleportation.
"That's impossible. Unless they have an absurd teleportation-type ability that can move them beyond the border."
Silence followed.
As far as Dmitry knew, no such game-breaking mobility user existed in this world.
# General. This is just my personal theory, but... could they have entered the Tower of Despair?
Dmitry frowned.
It was the most plausible thing he'd heard or seen since arriving here.
'The Tower.'
The question of where the client had gone remained, but it explained how a company-sized force had vanished in an instant.
'They must be planning to slip out with a small group when the encirclement loosens.'
He smirked.
They'd used their heads well, but they'd underestimated him.
"Uchinsky, go to the nearby base and bring every available detection device. Install them densely around the current assembly point. There is no mission end time. We wait until they come out."
# Yes, sir!
He was confident in a battle of patience.
He'd done it countless times since becoming a soldier.
*Ding.*
He lowered his head at the notification sound.
"!!!"
Dmitry checked the message and pressed his forehead.
It was the first time.
He'd felt this dizzy, this dark in front of his eyes.
# DNA collection and verification results from the scattered samples in the underground bunker: Client deceased.
'Damn it...!'
The worst-case scenario he'd feared had come to pass.
The moment this news reached the high command, it would arrive.
The greatest chaos in Russian history.
'They'll start tearing each other apart.'
The only reason the high command had been able to coexist peacefully was because of the client's money stream.
All the major projects required enormous funding.
The moment that funding disappeared, a silent war would break out to claim the finite resources.
This would shake the very foundation of the nation of Russia to its core.
*Creeeak!!*
Uncontrollable rage surged.
Who in the world, and where?
Who had appeared out of nowhere, delivered this national disaster-level middle finger to Russia, and then left?
* * *
*Crackle. Crackle.*
An endless expanse of hills.
I reached my hand toward the campfire.
Warm.
"It was so fast and fun!"
Cancho's perked-up ears twitched sharply.
The snowboard I'd ridden down from the mountain.
Actually, 'ridden' might be an overstatement. It was more like I just stood on it and came down.
'I was scared.'
I didn't know how to ride, so I just stood there trying to balance.
It shot down almost like a bullet.
How did I stop at the end?
I didn't.
I just trusted my sturdy body and crashed into something.
My body was fine, and the board was safe, so... all's well that ends well, right?
Anyway, even after coming down the mountain, I had to travel a long way by hitchhiking various rides.
That's how I crossed the border and arrived here, in Latvia.
It made me think, again, how great money is.
If I didn't have it, I'd have had to hitchhike or just walk all the way here.
'I need to exchange more dollars.'
As I nodded, a mouthwatering smell wafted over.
*Bubble, bubble, bubble.*
Moship, who had retired from the kitchen after Vayla took over cooking.
Today, Moship had shown off his skills for the first time in a while.
"It's ready!"
Finely chopped green onions and a cracked egg.
Plus, noodles that looked perfectly chewy.
There was nothing better for a late-night snack after playing in the snow.
"Baap."
"Freeze!"
As Nia slowly approached, Momomo blocked her path with a ladle.
"Wait for Moship's distribution!"
"O-okay."
Good thing.
The whole pot of ramen was about to disappear, but I'd marked it just in time.
As I waited obediently, Momomo served the ramen into a large bowl.
I quickly took it, added some well-fermented Kim Min-ji's mother's napa cabbage kimchi, and dug in.
*Slurp!*
"Mmm...!"
Bliss itself.
At this moment, I wouldn't trade this for any omakase.
"You cook well."
Carmella, who was eating beside me, also complimented.
I had a feeling she'd be vigorously pinching those chubby cheeks of hers in a bit.
"But, Master, how do you plan to get from here?"
"I need to find a place to call and contact the Black Wings. Now that we're out of Russian territory, I'll ask them to pick us up. While we wait, I'll do some runs in the Tower of Myth and the Tower of Despair. And!"
I pulled out one of the documents I'd taken from Spetsotrad.
Elia had taken the entire stack of documents into the Star Workshop.
Hours later, she'd appeared with this document and said something.
She thought it was nearby, and asked if we could stop by.
I moved next to Carmella and showed her the document.
"It's a ruin that Russia was secretly exploring. Apparently, there are artifacts and murals whose creation date can't be determined."
The report seemed to have been cut short, as it wasn't properly finished.
Most of the content inside was just speculation about alien civilizations or other worlds.
"Isn't it fate to encounter such places?"
Elia, holding her ramen bowl, smiled.
"An unexpected treasure!"
I agreed.
A place that Russia, which was already hiding so much, had secretly explored.
If they'd already found everything and taken it, it would be a bust, but based on the report, it didn't seem like they'd achieved any significant results.
So, this time, let's go and take a look ourselves.
After all, we have the specialists in treasure hunting.
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T/N:
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