Chapter 291: Frozen Ocean
Above the ocean in Busan with Lee Seola in my arms, I clicked my tongue and looked toward the sky.
“My heart feels magnificent…”
The wild waves and whirlpools are a mesmerizing collaboration.
Even the whirlpools on the other side of the ocean were stirring, and I was almost confused whether it was Busan or the Caribbean Bay. Korea is cool today, everyone.
“Da…Egostic. Hello?”
And there she was, giggling in front of me.
As she rubbed her long light blue hair against my chest, I smirked and opened my mouth.
“Yes, Icicle. What have you been doing?”
“Can’t you tell? I was stopping a terrorist attack.”
She smirked, as if my words were obvious.
…As bizarre as this situation of a villain having a friendly airborne conversation with a hero might seem, I’ve already had quite a few similar situations with Stardus, so it’s a familiar feeling. I don’t even have a camera with me, so who cares?
Anyway, with that thought in mind, I let go of Icicle for a moment and took stock of the situation.
Kugugugung-
Things were looking pretty bad.
It was starting to rain in the sky, and there was even lightning. The sea was in a whirlpool, a tidal wave, a tsunami, and basically every water-related disaster seemed to be gathering. At first glance, it was almost like a scene of carnage.
…But, if you don’t get overwhelmed by the visuals and look closely at the situation, you can see something.
It’s that all of these disasters, despite the gory visuals, aren’t really tearing the city apart.
They’re just hovering over the ocean with a lot of momentum, but they’re not coming towards the city. The tsunami was still stalled, just hitting the coastline.
Of course, I don’t know how long that’s going to last, but that’s the way it is right now.
With that view of the scene, I had a vague idea of why Ariel had done this.
‘…A show of force?’
The last time Ariel had asked me to join her Egostream I had refused because she was weak.
…And I thought she’d given up because she went home so depressed, but I guess not. She came back with such a surprise.
Perhaps this attack was her way of proving to me that she is strong, especially when it’s a passive attack that has my style of casualty-free massacre.
Yes, I’ll find out when I talk to Ariel over there, and I suspect she’ll stop if I say a few more words but that wasn’t the issue for me anymore.
I had other things on my mind.
“Egostic. What do you think? Shall we go together to finish this?”
Looking up at Icicle, who was looking up at me as she made ice cubes to dry her soaked and clinging T-shirt, I thought to myself.
Lee Seola is an A-list hero.
President of the largest conglomerate in Korea, Yuseong Group, Stardus’ best friend, and the dark force that ruled Korea behind the scenes in the original and still does today.
Unlike her overwhelming behind-the-scenes persona, where she manipulates the political system and plays with the country, her abilities as a hero were quite lacking compared to other A-classes.
Unlike Stardus, who is so powerful that she single-handedly elevated herself to an S-class hero, and Shadow Walker, whose powers exceed S-class only at night… She’s only an A-class with mediocre ice-generating abilities. As such, she didn’t have much to offer as a hero in the original story. Even she saw her powers as self-promotion.
However, in the original story, the heroic Icicle was faced with a huge crisis.
A disaster created by the HanEun Corporation, Behemoth, had to be defeated.
A giant, black worm-like creature that was created through biotech experiments. The monster that single-handedly destroyed Seoul in the original work and then went straight to North Korea to set up shop in the North.
After much protest, threats, and threats of war from the North Koreans, who were furious that our shit had crossed the border and ruined their land, Lee Seola, as our representative, went to defeat the creature that had taken up residence in North Korea.
Since the creature was weak to water, it was logical that she, who could make ice, was not a bad match…Actually, Stardus was busy at the time, and Shadow Walker was under orders from the North to never come.
Anyway, that was the biggest crisis of her life. She had to rely purely on her own abilities to overcome the situation, unlike before when she could use her head to solve everything.
But in the end, she was able to utilize her powers to the fullest and win the battle against the creature.
In the process, she completely froze the entire ocean in the area, earning her the nickname of the North Sea Ice Maiden.
Defeating the Behemoth was the only episode in the original story that showed Lee Seola growth as the hero Icicle.
…Of course, this became something that only happened in the original. I killed Behemoth by sending him into the Han River, thus ending his ties to North Korea. As a result, there was no chance for Icicle to earn the nickname North Sea Ice Maiden or for her powers to grow.
So I was actually a little nervous about this part, but I’ve been putting up with it because it’s not like I’m in a hurry to grow her powers right now. I thought about taking care of her after I retired, but then I had another child to take care of in Phase 4.
I thought that Icicle would just go on without a chance to grow…
What? It looks like this?
“…What are you staring at?”
As I silently looked down at Lee Seola and thought about it, feeling the pressure of my gaze, Seola turned her head slightly, with her ears slightly reddened and her arms crossed to cover herself. No, it’s not like that… Whatever.
“Icicle.”
“…What?”
I smirked at her, looking out at the stormy sea.
Seeing me smile like that, she felt something ominous, and her eyes widened slightly.
I grabbed her by the shoulders, pointed to the tidal wave, and whispered to her.
“I’ll try to convince that villain… but first, why don’t you, Icicle, stop all those waves and whirlpools?”
“…Haha, Egostic…what do you mean, you can just teleport…No, Da-in. How am I supposed to stop that?”
“Of course you can stop it. You can freeze it.”
“…? What? You want me to freeze it?”
“Yep. I’ve been thinking about it, and this seems like the best opportunity to grow Icicle.”
I reminded her that the tidal wave didn’t really affect the city center, then patted her on the back and said.
“Come on, Icicle!”
“…Mr. Da-in, wait, I’m not Stardus!!!”
With that, I teleported away from Seola, who was trying to grab me from behind, to the sky above, where a huge storm was brewing.
I’m pretty sure that’s where Ariel is.
“…It’s good to know where she is, right?”
With that thought, I flew around.
…Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at the grunting Icicle below me.
***
“This is bad….”
The sea in front of Busan.
Lee Seola was walking on the sea, freezing the ice as if she were the ice queen Haru and she had seen together as children, and she was heading towards the waves with her light blue hair sticking to her face.
…How could she freeze this? Perhaps Da-in had been playing with Stardus and thought that all heroes’ abilities were like that, but she hadn’t even heard of another hero like Stardus whose abilities grew in the first place, so how could this be?
As a smart entrepreneur, she was also very good at objectifying herself, so she knew her limitations. There was no way she could do this.
As she watched the water ripple in front of her, she looked downcast.
‘…Go ice!’
She shook slightly as she imagined Da-in cheering her on with a look of firm belief that she could do it.
…Yeah, but that was Egostic, not anyone else, so of course he’s only saying that because he has reason to believe she can do it.
…..If I put all my strength into it, will it work?
Oh, I don’t know. If I fall down, he’ll save me.
I’m a very rational person, but I can’t get involved with him… I have to be responsible…
With that thought, she pulled on her t-shirt and breathed in.
Okay. Let’s give it a shot. I haven’t had a chance to use all of my powers so far, so maybe it’s just that.
Like that.
-Ugh. Aaaahhhhhh.
As the second wave roared, a tsunami-like wave so large it shadowed her.
“Hhhhhh!”
She steeled herself, forming ice crystals in her hands with a strength she’d never known before.
Then, centered on her, the churning seas began to freeze into an immense mass of sky-blue ice – no waves, no whirlpools.
“Uhhhhhh….!!!”
She gritted her teeth and gave it her all, something she had never done before.
-Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Finally, she succeeded in freezing the tornado in the sky.
Soon, she was floating on a frozen sea, like an ice kingdom.
After exerting all her strength, Lee Seola collapsed on the ice.
“Ha, ha, ha. …Did I succeed?”
“Yes. You have succeeded, Icicle. I knew you could do it.”
A man descends from the sky, clapping his hands and flapping his black cloak.
Smiling, he turned back around and held out his arm toward her, and Icicle couldn’t help but chuckle to herself and take it.
“Egostic, I guess I’m getting a desk job after all.”
It was so hard.
*
And then.
“….?”
Stardus froze at the sight of Egostic and Icicle smiling and holding hands.
‘…When did you two get so close?’
