"Friendly fire...?"

"That's right. I'm a hero!"

"A hero!?"

The mage muttered blankly. Hearing an undead claim to be a hero must've shaken them considerably; they had already stopped attacking. Lee Shin-Woo was relieved, but then Jin shouted in fright, "The ground. The ground!"

"Tch..."

The problem was the spell cast earlier was still around. The wall of sharp icy thorns continued to surge several dozens of meters upward! It wasn't the time to be relieved!

"Hah!"

Without thinking, Lee Shin-Woo conjured a Melting Double Bone Axe and threw it hard. The axe shattered the wall's sharp edges and exploded the moment it was lodged; even though their reaction was a little delayed, Lee Shin-Woo and Jin somehow managed to come out relatively unscathed amidst the shards of ice.

"I thought we'd become skewers," Jin grumbled.

"Don't worry, there’s no flesh left of us to grill... Wait, no. It's my fault. I'm sorry. Stop shaking."

"You're terrible. You know that? Absolutely terrible."

"It was all my fault. I'm really sorry. Please stop shaking."

"It certainly doesn't seem like you've been affected by the curse..." the mage said suddenly.

Lee Shin-Woo and Jin had been struggling to survive, and they ignored the mage completely in favor of getting to safety, and still they couldn’t relax.

"Are you really heroes?” asked the mage. “Even though you're undead...?"

The slim woman reached...