Chapter 196: The One Who Wasn’t Snow
People had appeared along with the blizzard.
Through his right eye, they looked human to anyone who saw them. But through his left eye, the one set with the [Eye of Illusion Piercing], something completely different came into view.
’Monsters made of snow and ice.’
They looked like snowmen twisted into grotesque shapes, unsettling just to look at.
It felt like monsters doing an impression of people, and Walfred’s expression hardened. It brought back the Skinwalker incident he’d lived through in Savannah, Georgia.
Then, at that moment.
[Warning! Temperature is plummeting.]
[Current temperature: -175°F]
A warning notification appeared before his eyes.
Only then did Walfred realize it.
The closer those ice illusions playing at being human came, the more sharply the surrounding temperature dropped.
And one more thing.
Something had changed from before.
’...My mana is draining faster.’
Aside from Frozen Weapon, he had no skills active right now. And yet his mana consumption had spiked the moment the illusions showed up?
It was safe to read that as those things absorbing his mana. Realizing it, Walfred’s gaze went cold and flat.
Then, at that moment.
"Ikiorniarunga!"
"Nuliara panigalu tammarput···."
"Sunatuinnaq iliorsinnaavunga!"
The illusions had closed to arm’s reach before he knew it.
Wearing pitiful expressions, they reached out toward him one after another. The temperature around him fell further, and his mana drained faster still.
And in that instant.
Thwack! Thwaaack!
Walfred swung his ice axe without hesitation.
He split the illusions clinging to him clean in half, then took the heads off the ones coming up behind them, one by one.
Thwaaaack! Crunch!
"Aaaa! Ataataa!"
"Suna iliorpit···!"
"Toqutsisoq!"
The illusions screamed as they fell.
Some of them hurled curses or spat insults at him, but once they died, every last one of them turned to snow and ice without exception.
That was exactly why Walfred could keep swinging the axe without a shred of hesitation. And in the process, he noticed one thing.
’They’re all Greenlandic.’
The man who’d approached him first.
The dozens of children, women, and old people who came after him. All of them spoke Greenlandic.
He understood why right away.
’They said the White Whale swallowed a huge number of gates while it was passing through Greenland.’
Gates were often used as refuges.
Once a gate was cleared, the climate inside was stable unlike the outside world, and there was no need to worry about monsters or raiders attacking from without.
So when the White Whale first appeared, Greenland had almost certainly done what everyone always did and evacuated their non-Awakened past the entrance of a cleared gate.
’And then the White Whale swallowed that gate.’
Along with everyone sheltering inside it.
And maybe the people who’d been in there had been replaced by illusions of snow and ice, like these, through some ability the White Whale possessed.
It was nothing more than a hypothesis, of course.
Thwack!
After splitting the last remaining illusion in half.
Walfred looked at the blizzard raging around him and frowned.
’This has been getting on my nerves for a while now.’
The snow was whipping around, distracting and relentless.
It was far worse than before, so bad that he could barely see ahead of him and had no field of vision to speak of.
At this rate, finding the White Whale’s true body would be impossible.
’In that case...’
He’d have to deal with this blizzard first.
Decision made, Walfred shifted the ice axe into an ice hammer. Then, along with a mana charge, he triggered [Titan Attack] at the same time.
[Titan Attack: Charging]
[Ice Hammer: Mana charge initiated]
[Current charge time: 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds...]
His mana drained fast.
A moment later, fully prepared, Walfred slammed the ice hammer down into the ground with everything he had.
Whooosh! Kabooooom!
A tremendous roar went up, and a powerful shockwave blew away everything around him.
The corpses of the illusions that had turned to snow and ice, the blizzard whipping around like something rabid, all of it. As his view opened up in one stroke, Walfred grinned.
But in that instant.
"...!"
His expression suddenly hardened.
Right after he’d blown the blizzard away, he sensed something flying at him from behind.
Whoosh!
The sound of something cutting through the air.
He instinctively twisted at the waist and slipped the ambush. A blade glowing pure white grazed the tip of his nose by a hair.
At the same time, Walfred converted the ice hammer into an ice spear and thrust it at the opponent who had appeared out of nowhere to ambush him.
And then.
Halt!
Walfred stopped his attack mid-motion.
The ice spear came to rest a hair’s breadth from the space between his opponent’s eyes. A little more force and it would have punched straight through her skull, and the reason he hadn’t was simple.
[Notice: Demon Eye - Inactive]
[No illusion detected.]
Unlike everything he’d fought until now.
His opponent wasn’t an illusion. She was human.
He kept the ice spear where it was and studied her face.
’A high schooler?’
She was a woman in her late teens.
What stood out was that her hair and eyebrows were as white as snow. On top of that, she had light blue eyes that looked unnatural.
’Something about her reminds me of Elsa.’
Her features were nothing alike.
But the color of her hair and eyes gave her an overall look that called Elsa to mind.
Then, at that moment.
Clang!
The woman threw her glowing sword to the ground.
Then she immediately raised both hands.
As if telling him she had no intention of fighting. And then, out of nowhere, she spoke to him.
"Sumeersuuvit?"
"...?"
What’s she saying?
At the sudden burst of Greenlandic, Walfred frowned instead of answering. At his sour reaction, the woman tilted her head and asked again.
"Kalaallisut paasinngilat?"
"...Like I said, I have no idea what you’re saying."
Walfred muttered it almost like a sigh.
The moment she heard him, those light blue eyes, sharp with wariness a second ago, went round.
"Immaqa una... New America-meersuuvit?!"
Her expression was pure shock.
A moment later, she spoke to him again.
"You’re... you’re from New America?"
"...!"