Chapter 27
That day, I was in an unusually good mood.
“Today's~ lunch~ has to be sushi~”
I was in such a good mood that I was singing a melody I had made up myself while ordering lunch alone at home.
Hehehe. On a day this pleasant, there's nothing to do but play games all day long.
Today, I'll spend the whole day sitting in my chair and lazing around!
Having made up my mind, I used my smartphone to order sushi for lunch.
32,000 won…. It was a whopping 1.2 gachas, but on a day this pleasant, worrying about money was a luxury I couldn't afford.
“Buy now!”
Sushi I only bought occasionally because it was so expensive….
This sushi was sure to become the masterpiece of a happy day. I was certain of it!
Seeing the order-complete notice on my smartphone put me in such a good mood that I couldn't help grinning foolishly.
“All right, shall I play games to pass the time now!”
I shouted enthusiastically, then scampered over to my chair and sat down.
Then I started up the game and placed the headset hanging on the wall over my head.
When I connected the headset to the computer, sparkling blue light streamed from it and heightened my excitement.
Judging by how good I felt, I had a feeling I could win my promotion match today.
Hehehe…. Come at me, everyone…. I'll show you how terrifying a Snow Woman can be!
“Then I'll get right into the game…. Ow!”
But just as I was about to press the start button….
Startled by the sudden pain in my arm, I reflexively slapped it, and a dead bug and a little blood came out.
A mosquito?
Bzz—bzz
Once I realized there was a mosquito, I gradually began to hear the buzzing of mosquitoes flying around me.
The irritating flutter of a predator flying around in search of blood.
Even when I tried to ignore it, the wingbeats were absurdly loud for something so small—too irritating to endure.
“Ah…. Seriously…. It's still May….”
The news had definitely said that, because this year's weather was hotter, pests like mosquitoes would become active earlier than usual, but….
This is way too soon…. It's only mid-May….
Even when I covered my ears against the buzzing, these mosquitoes seemed to have lost all fear; they kept flying around in front of me, getting on my nerves.
Fine, if you insist on keeping this up, I'll show you humanity's power.
Though I am a Snow Woman.
======
I kept swatting at the mosquito buzzing around me while rummaging through a pile of junk…. No—a storage cabinet.
“I probably put some mosquito repellent around here somewhere….”
I was looking for a poison that would kill the mosquito.
Hehehe…. No matter how much you fly or crawl, you'll realize how utterly powerless you are before a human weapon….
“...That is, if I can just find it.”
The only problem was that I couldn't find the weapon capable of definitely killing the mosquito, no matter how much I dug through the junk drawer where it was supposed to be hiding.
That's strange…. I'm sure I bought some last time and put it in here….
Ssssk-
“...Huh?”
Just then, a strange sound came from the wall beside me.
Unlike the sound of a mosquito's wings, this was the sound of something crawling—
No way….
Overcome with dread, I stiffly turned my frozen body to look beside me—and
My eyes met the thing crawling along the wall.
“Aaaaaaaah!!!”
The thing crawling along the wall was….
A... Mr. Cockroach....
======
“Phew…. I really panicked over seeing just one cockroach.”
A little time passed after I saw Mr. Cockroach.
I had regained my composure and was calmly assessing the situation.
Now that I thought about it, my studio apartment was fairly old, so it wasn't strange for bugs to show up. Maybe I'd just overreacted.
It wasn't as though I hadn't seen bugs plenty of times in my life.
...Of course, I'd never seen a creature so biologically repulsive before….
Even so, it was still just a bug.
Bugs were lowly life-forms that couldn't even reach a human's toes.
All I had to do was beat it with an advanced strategy no bug could ever employ.
Namely, abandoning my home and getting out.
“Hahahaha….”
After seeing Mr. Cockroach, I hurriedly grabbed only my smartphone and fled outside.
“A Snow Woman can't coexist with bugs. So this isn't running away—it's merely a strategic retreat. It's absolutely not running away. I'm only retreating because I'm a Snow Woman. I have no basis for saying that, but anyway, that's how it is.”
Muttering this excuse to no one in particular, I stepped outside into a gentle breeze, bright sunlight, and—
“Hot….”
The 22-degree heat welcomed me.
======
...When I thought it over calmly, I realized it wasn't just the heat; I also couldn't stay away from home after paying so much for the sushi I'd ordered.
Damn it…. I shouldn't have ordered sushi….
“Now that it's come to this…. I guess I'll have to catch it….”
With running away no longer an option, my only remaining choice was to fight.
It was something I really, really didn't want to face, but now that things had come to this, I had no choice….
“Phew….”
I took a deep breath to calm myself, then carefully opened the door and entered my home.
For now…. I don't see it….
Fortunately, I didn't have the misfortune of seeing Mr. Cockroach the moment I entered, so I had time to prepare my gear.
Holding my breath so Mr. Cockroach wouldn't notice me, I crept toward the desk, moving my feet a little at a time.
Then I ripped up one of the textbooks lying around and folded it into a fan, making a weapon against Mr. Cockroach.
“Hehehe…. With this, even a cockroach…. Eek?!”
But while I was admiring my weapon, Mr. Cockroach suddenly appeared, startling me into dropping it.
Mr. Cockroach climbed onto the fan as if to show off, contaminating my weapon.
“If things have come to this….”
Unable to use my weapon, I gathered cold in both hands and shaped it into icicles.
“Icicle Drop—!!”
Then I thrust both hands out, aimed at Mr. Cockroach, and unleashed all the icicles.
Countless icicles poured onto the desk like torrential rain, and the impact punched holes in it.
“Did I get it?!”
Ssssss-
“Hiiieeek?!”
But Mr. Cockroach crawled out from between the ice as if it were nothing and spread its wings.
I-it's disgusting!!
“Die!!”
The sight made goosebumps rise all over me, so I launched icicles even more powerful than before, completely smashing the desk.
Th-this much should do it….
Skitter-skitter-!
“H-hiiiek?! It's still alive…?”
Even after all that, Mr. Cockroach survived—whether thanks to its incredible vitality or its evasiveness—and mocked me by flapping its wings.
“Tch…! Don't think you've won just because of this…!”
The thought of getting trash-talked by a mere bug filled me with rage.
It was the same rage I felt in a game when I had 11 kills and 4 assists, but someone with 0 kills, 2 assists, and 12 deaths started giving me pointers.
Now that it had come to this, I'd show it the Snow Woman's true power…!
Using my anger as energy, I converted all the moisture around me into cold, compressed it into a small space, and detonated the resulting technique as I shouted,
“Disappear completely—!!”
======
When you think of an ice age, what comes to mind?
An ice age is commonly understood as a phenomenon in which Earth's temperature drops sharply, causing large parts of the planet to freeze over.
And today, I experienced that ice age firsthand.
Right there in my completely frozen home….
“...I must be crazy.”
I stood alone in my home, where everything—including Mr. Cockroach and all my belongings—had frozen solid.
I had lost my head for a moment and ended up using more firepower than necessary.
On top of that, my legs were trembling from the overload, and I felt as though I could collapse at any moment.
Still, the one good thing was that I'd exterminated Mr. Cockroach….
...Yeah, as long as I'd gotten it, that's what mattered. Right.
Now that I'd caught Mr. Cockroach, there was nothing left to fear, so I could quietly wait for my sushi to arrive….
“Student Seolhwa.”
......
For some reason, I could hear my landlord's voice coming from the door.
And an immense killing intent….
Faced with the fear of death, I stood trembling all over and slowly turned around.
There, at the door, stood my landlord, cloaked in an aura of fury.
“Please spare me….”
======
In the end, my landlord gave me an absolutely brutal scolding.
I spent five whole hours kneeling while listening to a lecture, leaving my knees completely wrecked; on top of that, the sushi I'd gone to such lengths to order spoiled before I could eat it.
Ugh…. My sushi…. The price of 1.2 gachas….
In the end, I ordered cold noodles and ate them while fighting back tears. That day, they tasted like tears.
======
Time passed. It was three in the morning the next day.
I finally managed to thaw out the frozen interior of my home, then collapsed onto my bed.
“I feel like I'm dying… I'm going to die… Just let me die already….”
Between the output overload, the scolding, and thawing out the house, my stamina was completely spent, and I didn't want to move a single step away from the bed.
What the hell was I even doing, going through all this over one measly bug….
Thinking about it now was so absurd that all I could do was laugh.
“By the way, why is it so hot….”
I wanted to go straight to sleep, but the temperature in the house was strangely inhospitable to a Snow Woman, so I couldn't.
Today had been a little hot, but it was strange for it to be this hot even at night…. I had an air conditioner, after all….
With that thought, I summoned the last of my strength and raised my head slightly. The air conditioner was turned off.
“I must be crazy…. I didn't turn on the air conditioner….”
With the air conditioner off, I, as a Snow Woman, simply couldn't sleep.
It was unpleasant, too…. What if I melted?
The only problem was that the air conditioner remote was a little far away….
I solved that problem easily by rolling my body along the floor.
Hehehe…. I'm an INT-specialized Snow Woman, after all. Hehehehe….
After rolling over to the remote, I immediately pressed the button, but—
“...Huh?”
The air conditioner didn't respond in the slightest.