The tranquil beach of the Hwatang Bath, where crimson waves of magma gently lapped at the shore.
“Is that person having a rough day?”
The External Cooperation Department Negotiator, who had come to see off the Promotion Team, whispered cautiously.
Even in his ignorance, he could sense the murderous aura radiating from Hallakgoong. Mujae smiled awkwardly.
“…Ha ha, seems like there’s something going on at home.”
“Oh dear.”
It wasn’t just an empty excuse. The night before, Hallakgoong, enraged by the news of yet another business trip, ended up in a fierce argument with Sara.
Zack and Mujae had expected Hallakgoong to win, but the outcome was an unexpected defeat.
And the reason was nothing short of petty—shifting responsibility to his Superior.
‘Then you call Northern Ice Hell and tell them you’re not coming.’
A Bureaucrat of the Underworld with a strong sense of duty could never do that.
For a Subordinate to refuse an assignment already agreed upon by their Superior would tarnish the reputation of the Seocheon Flower Garden.
In the end, all Hallakgoong could do was prevent further mishaps.
‘There won’t be a next time.’
‘Oh dear! Of course, that goes without saying! Father just got too excited and slipped up. Never again, I promise!’
No one believed Sara’s sly assurance.
His friends felt they finally understood why Hallakgoong was so quick-tempered.
After the call, Mujae carefully approached, hoping to console him.
‘If it happens again, I’ll just lie down and refuse to go.’
‘Funny.’
What came back was a sharp retort.
‘You were the one who kept singing about wanting a business trip even before the Collaboration.’
‘…I’m sorry.’
Mujae immediately apologized and zipped his lips.
The truth was, Mujae’s days had been a surge of dopamine lately.
Wasn’t he the one who had longed for business trips even before joining Boiling Hell? Being recognized by those who valued hard work felt wonderful.
Yet Hallakgoong’s face, who was on the same team, showed no signs of brightening even the next day.
Once again, clad in his spacesuit-like Insulation Suit, Hallakgoong was packing.
With each piece of equipment packed, he heaved a sigh; every step brought another sigh… It was then that Zack spoke up.
‘Do you really hate it that much?’
At Zack’s question, Hallakgoong’s eyebrows creased at a peculiar angle, as if someone had drawn the wrong line on his white porcelain doll face.
“Yeah.”
‘What do you hate so much about it?’
“…It’s just a silly worry of mine. Don’t mind it.”
“What is it, what is it?”
In an instant, everyone surrounded Hallakgoong.
There were only about six or seven minutes left until the boat to Northern Ice Hell arrived—just the right amount of time to hear out a friend’s concerns.
Even the Negotiator watched with curiosity, prompting Hallakgoong to take another deep breath and finally speak.
“I just don’t think I’ll get along with Northern Ice Hell’s temperament.”
“Not get along?”
“Oh, their temperament is really something else, you know.”
The Negotiator chipped in knowingly, his colorful language making a show of what the Promotion Team had experienced the last two days.
“All our Underworld’s hells are connected by the River of Three Crossings. They’re linked in a circle, like a Circle Ring.”
‘The River of Three Crossings? What’s that?’
“The River of Three Crossings is, well, it serves a similar role as the Styx in the West.”
By now, the Negotiator could practically read Zack’s sign language just by watching.
“It divides the mortal realm from the underworld, and it’s the first place the Dead step into when they arrive here. At the entrance, an impatient couple strips all the Dead of their clothes… ahem, well, you can hear the rest from them later.”
Mujae nodded as the Negotiator looked his way, wearing a smile of true enlightenment.
“They check your sins by weighing your clothes, but for me, nothing came out.”
“Oh…”
“They couldn’t believe it, so they stripped me about fifty times.”
“The magma here at the Hwatang Bath also flows into the River of Three Crossings… Of course, once it leaves as magma, it solidifies into lava and meets the streams that connect to Northern Ice Hell.”
Staring at the round Circle Ring in the black sand and the Northern Ice Hell right next door to Boiling Hell, Hallakgoong asked,
“Now that you mention it, it’s strange how two places with such opposite natures are right next to each other. Don’t they affect each other?”
“Well… among ourselves, we joke that it’s because ‘Their Majesties get along so well, so the places ended up together.’”
With a hearty laugh, the Negotiator drew more circles.
“All this is Northern Ice Hell.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t tell you which part is Northern Ice Hell either. Northern Ice Hell is one giant glacier, you see. It floats on the water, constantly changing position. So maybe that’s why it’s fine to be so close to us?”
“…Then how do you get there??”
Hallakgoong was bewildered. Would they be instantly transported by some saddle-shaped boat again? Mujae, standing by, waved his hand as if it were nothing.
“If you just drift around nearby, they’ll come and pick you up.”
“??”
“Puh-choo!”
Who knows how many hours had passed? All that lay before them was a vast expanse of sea and ice.
Each time the waves lapped against the glacier, it sounded almost like wind chimes.
The boat provided by Boiling Hell, sturdy even in rock-melting heat, was just a tiny skiff once it left the magma caves.
The glaciers that had seemed mere white dots now loomed overhead, and the Promotion Team was awed by their overwhelming size.
Wherever they went, the ice pushed them this way and that, then that way and this.
Before this boundless scenery of sky, water, and ice, the overseas students who had withstood the heat were now frozen stiff.
“Zack, are you alright?”
Zack nodded, shivering violently, but he looked anything but alright.
He had already sneezed dozens of times, his nose so rubbed raw it seemed it might shoot fire.
Hallakgoong shook his head at the sight.
“The Insulation Suit is supposed to have a cold-resistant function. Does his not have it?”
“Ha ha, if that were true….”
Thud. Behind Mujae’s mechanical smile, Zack, wrapped in a Thermal Blanket over his Insulation Suit, swayed and staggered.
“No matter how godly you are, you’d have frozen solid by now.”
Splash—!
“Zack?!”
Just as Mujae said, Zack was in real danger of turning into ice.
Alarmed, Hallakgoong and Mujae sprawled on the boat, reaching for him, but Zack, who had fallen out, drifted away atop the waves.
Hallakgoong and Mujae’s eyes met in panic.
Mujae seemed about to leap out of the boat.
“Do you know how to swim?!”
“No?”
“Then why are you about to jump?!”
What a reckless fool! Annoyed, Hallakgoong blocked Mujae and prepared to jump in himself.
[Ah—ah—]
From a distant place, a child’s voice rang out, loud as if broadcast through a megaphone.
“??”
[Are you folks from the Seocheon Flower Garden—?]
Turning toward the sound, Hallakgoong and Mujae saw a glacier approaching them, much larger than any they’d seen so far.
On top of it, a tiny figure bounced up and down.
[That’s right!!]
“Yes, yes!!”
[Just wait a moment—]
At that instant, a giant shadow loomed from the sky.
“?!”
Whoosh!
Suddenly, they shot up into the air.
A huge net had scooped them—boat and all—right up.
Even Zack, frozen into an ice block, was caught as well.
“Zack!!”
Their dumbfounded reunion took place on top of the massive glacier they’d seen earlier.
And Mujae encountered another familiar face.
“Long time no see, Dead one!”
“Seolpyo!”
The megaphone’s owner was a rosy-cheeked child monk.
Seolpyo waddled over to Mujae, only reaching up to their chests.
Seeing frozen-solid Zack, Seolpyo cried out in alarm.
“Did you fall in the water?! No wonder, the sound was weird earlier!”
Seolpyo hurriedly helped them out of the net and led them toward the center of the glacier.
To their surprise, there was a staircase going down right in the middle of the ice.
“Come along! It’s warm inside.”
“But it’s all ice here…?”
Hallakgoong couldn’t hide his doubtful expression, but as they followed Seolpyo down the stairs drilled into the center of the glacier, the biting chill seemed to fade.
The stairs and walls were all made of ice, yet without the sharp wind from outside, it felt much cozier.
The two of them, the biggest among the group, had to drag their thoroughly frozen friend down.
All they could do was grab his coat and pull, so every time Zack thudded down a step, it made a loud noise.
“This must be Northern Ice Hell…?”
“This is the core, yeah.”
Mujae, who had more experience here than Hallakgoong, shared what he knew.
“It’s not like Boiling Hell, where the cauldron for torturing sinners sits right in the center. Here, the whole place is hell, wherever you go.”
“…So there’s no clear boundary?”
“Right. They say sinners wander around here with nothing but their bare bodies, eventually freezing solid… I only know this spot, though, so I’m not really sure.”
Hearing Mujae’s matter-of-fact words, a sense of the years he’d lived hit home.
Without any memories of a past life, a Dead who’d spent ages at the judgment stand might have experienced a longer old age than anyone.
As Hallakgoong pondered about Mujae, they reached the end of the stairs. At the tidy hallway’s end, Seolpyo waved them over.
“Over here! This way, please!”
Somehow, Zack, now a little thawed, managed to stand up. He slowly motioned to Mujae and Hallakgoong.
‘Thanks, friends. I almost ended up like Theseus.’
“Theseus? Who’s that?”
‘A Dead whose butt got stuck to a Chair and had to be pried off, ending up with a pointy bottom.’
“A pointy bottom?!”
Following Seolpyo, they reached the parlor and were finally able to take off their Insulation Suits (and cold-resistant clothes).
Seolpyo poured three cups of Ginger Tea.
“You must have been really cold? Here, have some ginger tea.”
“Thank you.”
As the steam from the ginger tea warmed their throats, forgotten warmth returned. Seolpyo drew the blinds in the parlor, and through the wide window, the inky-blue River of Three Crossings stretched out before them. Countless glaciers glimmered white on the water. It was the same route they’d traveled by boat, just viewed from a higher place, yet it felt completely different.
“Wow….”
Hallakgoong’s eyes sparkled. Seeing this, Seolpyo lifted his shoulders with pride.
“Isn’t it amazing?! I’m Seolpyo, the administrator of the Gatdok Channel here in Northern Ice Hell. I never expected you all to get here so quickly.”
“Ah….”
“I saw your Boiling Collaboration video just recently! So I thought you’d be busy, but you contacted us right after we sent the email. Usually, it takes weeks to arrange things between departments, right? Seocheon Flower Garden must be really fast at communication.”
The Promotion Team could only smile awkwardly.
There was no need to shatter another region official’s illusions. Still, Hallakgoong, unable to hide his own resentment, spoke up.
“It was… a sudden business trip for us, too.”
Mujae, unable to admit it was a unilateral decision from their Superior, quickly changed the subject.
“This Jail Guard has always treated me well whenever I visit Northern Ice Hell.”
“Hehe! I didn’t do anything~”
Embarrassed but happy, Seolpyo handed out neatly printed materials and introduced Northern Ice Hell.
“Our Northern Ice Hell’s Gatdok Channel has two million subscribers, and GrabeGram has about 1.5 million—making it a solid healing channel. We shoot beautiful scenery for ASMR, playlists, meditation content, and more!”
The thick packet he handed out made clear what Northern Ice Hell hoped for from the Seocheon Flower Garden Promotion Team.
Hallakgoong frowned as he read the title.
“?”
“Yes! I’ve been watching all your latest videos!!”
It was at that moment that the Promotion Team became certain. This kid…
“I want to make something like your ‘Nomsa Team Documentary’ too!”
Was just like Mujae.
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