“Turing!”

Merka let out a heart-wrenching roar and reached toward Turing.

But as pure blue-white light filled the small doorframe, a magnificent cascade of ice burst into existence, crushing the entire frame to pieces in an instant.

Countless ice bees, as plump as locusts, struggled to squeeze through the cracks in the doorframe. In mere seconds, their frenzied forms swept through the entire corridor, flying nonstop toward its far end.

A ferocious chill spread rapidly down the corridor.

The air, once dense and solid, seemed to be suddenly sucked away and replaced by a frost wind that could corrode a person’s lungs.

In the blink of an eye, a thin layer of frost covered the entire corridor.

Merka pulled back the hand he’d braced against the floor in shock, only to find it completely coated in frost. The unbearable cold made his fingernails split and crumble from the pain.

In a daze, Merka felt as if his hand were being roasted over flames. The unstoppable agony of the cold seized his throat in one brutal instant, leaving even the air he breathed frozen there.

“Hiss—”

“It’s freezing—”

Suddenly, amid the swarms of ice bees pouring out, one of them seemed to notice Merka.

It drew closer, its gorgeous azure wings beating out blurred silver trails as it slowly approached Merka.

“Hey, how dare you make a sound? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Suddenly, a broad coat appeared and dropped over Merka from above, covering him in shadow.

A cute little girl with red hair and green eyes seized the coat and pressed Merka down beneath it.

“I’m… I’m the eldest daughter of Altria—how dare you touch me?”

The girl who had previously called herself Oedipus lifted her chin and puffed out her chest. Like a groundhog facing danger, she raised both hands high in front of her and stood between Merka and the ice bee, confronting it.

Although her clothes were now in tatters, her smooth little belly was dotted with holes like a pierced jade disk, its faintly flushed skin appearing and disappearing between the torn strips of cloth, giving her a bashful look.

But the researcher’s ID badge in her hand was completely genuine.

Mental Health Department—Angel Department Staff.

The ice bee ignored the girl’s long stream of babbling. It stopped right in front of her ID badge, as if carefully examining the words written on it.

The wrinkled human face atop the ice bee’s head showed a trace of hesitation, but in the end, it seemed to decide to leave.

The girl breathed a sigh of relief, then immediately became even more aggressive in tone.

“Hurry up and leave! Go do what you’re supposed to be doing!”

When the girl saw the ice bee leave, the tension in her mind finally snapped, and she dropped to her knees on the floor.

The endless ice bees finally vanished, leaving the entire corridor encased in a hard layer of ice from the frost scattered by their azure wings.

The indoor temperature continued to plunge.

Merka was certain he’d never experienced such terrifying cold in any winter since the day he was born.

“You… how are you awake?”

Merka stared at the girl who had saved him, unable to believe his eyes.

“Yeah. You were the ones who saved me before, right? So now, this young lady is saving your life in return!”

“I’ll have my mother reward you properly afterward… but this place is too dangerous right now. Come with me first.”

The younger Oedipus spoke as she pulled Merka to his feet.

But Merka immediately ran toward the door, gathered his magic power, and anxiously tried to shatter the ice barrier blocking it with magic.

“No… Turing’s still in there!”

Merka said to the girl.

“I don’t care about some Turing or No-Turing! If you stay here, you’ll freeze to death!”

“The behavior of these ice bees is strange. They don’t normally attack humans at random, and they should only pose a threat to angels.”

“They’re operating at such high power right now. At this rate, it won’t be long before the entire Smokeless Zone is frozen into one enormous ice sculpture…”

The girl continued talking to herself. Then she seemed to remember something, her mouth opening into a round shape in surprise as she gently raised one hand to cover it.

“Ah, wait. Are you saying your friend was frozen inside the hive by the ice bees?”

“It’s fine. Come with me first. My boyfriend works here, and he’ll help us.”

“His laboratory has a whole bunch of tools developed for angels. He’ll definitely be able to rescue your friend from the ice!”