Chapter 197: Universal Adaptation
Now it was Walfred’s turn to be surprised.
He hadn’t expected her to speak English.
Her delivery was a little halting, but there was clearly no problem communicating. So he nodded, and the woman muttered in a flustered voice.
"Why would someone from New America be here?"
"Because the White Whale came to New America."
"...! I, is that true? The White Whale, in New America?"
"That’s right."
Walfred answered flatly.
The woman looked like she’d taken a serious blow, and she murmured with a dazed look on her face.
"New America-mut tikissimavoq···."
He had no idea what it meant.
Roughly speaking, she seemed to be lamenting that it had already made it all the way to New America. Meanwhile, Walfred pulled back the ice spear he’d been holding on her.
She’d given up the fight and they could actually talk, so there was no reason to keep threatening her.
Then, at that moment.
Fwoosh! Whooooosh!
From not far off.
The blizzard started up again.
His vision was clouding over just like before, and as he narrowed his eyes at it, the woman, who had been standing there in a daze, suddenly grabbed his hand.
"Let’s go somewhere else, quick."
"Why bother?"
"Because if we stay here, those aputip tarrai from before will just keep pouring out forever."
What the hell is an aputip tarrai?
He wanted to ask right then, but one look at her face said there wasn’t time for it. Her complexion had gone pale as she kept talking.
"There’s a place I found. Let’s go there."
Walfred thought it over, then nodded.
Moving before the blizzard cut off his vision again seemed like the smart call.
And so Walfred followed the woman’s lead, heading in the direction opposite the oncoming blizzard.
---
Some time later.
After walking for well over half an hour, they arrived at a place where a massive pit had been gouged into the ground. And there, something caught Walfred’s eye.
’What’s that?’
In a corner of the pit.
Several pebbles giving off a bright glow had been laid out in the shape of a square.
He was still tilting his head at it when.
"Come over here."
The woman stepped into the area marked by the glowing stones and beckoned to him. When he followed her in, something remarkable happened.
’...!? The wind...!’
The blizzard that had been howling around them a second ago was simply gone. And the temperature had risen a great deal compared to before.
Not that it amounted to much, going from below -148°F to somewhere around -58°F.
"Whew. It’s safe now."
Meanwhile, the woman let out a sigh of relief.
Like a weight had come off her shoulders. Watching her, Walfred made no effort to hide his curiosity.
"What is this place?"
"It’s a barrier I made with my skill."
"A barrier?"
"Yes. It’s called [Domain of Light]. It creates a space that isn’t affected by the surrounding environment."
Once she’d finished answering his question.
The woman’s eyes went wide, like she’d just remembered something she’d forgotten.
"Oh, I’m sorry, I never introduced myself."
She got to her feet a little unsteadily.
The white-haired woman gave Walfred a small bow. Then she gave her name.
"I’m a hunter with the Qinngorput Shelter in Nuuk, Greenland. My name is Nivi."
Nivi.
The name was somewhere in his memory.
Where had he heard it? He dug back through his recollections and got there soon enough.
’Ah! The one Elma mentioned...’
The Greenlandic S-rank hunter who’d reportedly gone missing during the White Whale subjugation. That was definitely her name.
To confirm the memory he’d just dug up, Walfred looked at Nivi and asked.
"You’re the one who went missing fighting the White Whale..."
"Yes, that’s right."
Before he’d even finished.
Nivi nodded.
"During the subjugation, I punched through its body and got inside, and then I got sucked into a huge gate that was in there, like it swallowed me whole."
Recalling the moment, she wore a bitter expression. Then her shoulders slumped and she let out a deep sigh.
"After that I tried to get back out, but the gate had already vanished..."
So she’d been trapped here.
Nivi explained her situation calmly. When Walfred nodded just as calmly, she followed up with a question of her own.
"You said earlier that the White Whale came to New America, right?"
"I did."
"Then would you happen to know how much time has passed since I went missing?"
She asked like she badly wanted to know.
Of course. There was no access to the hunter shop or the community in here, so she’d have no way of knowing the date.
Walfred nodded readily.
Then, roughly calculating the gap between the date the White Whale had shown up in Nuuk, which he’d heard from Elma, and today’s date, he answered.
"About a week, give or take."
"Mm, I see. Looks like there’s no time difference between inside the gate and outside, thankfully."
Nivi sounded relieved.
Watching her, it seemed she’d been keeping track of how much time had passed in here.
And she was still this composed about it.
Walfred voiced his admiration honestly.
"You did well to last a week in a place like this."
"I had a decent amount of preserved rations on me. They’re almost gone now, though..."
"That’s not what I meant."
"Sorry?"
"I’m saying it’s impressive that you survived a whole week somewhere this cold."
Nivi was a light attribute hunter.
This place, on the other hand, was an extreme environment where the temperature dropped below -148°F. Unless you were a fire or frost attribute, you couldn’t hold out for a week.
’And yet...’
Nivi had done exactly that.
What’s more, she didn’t look to be in bad shape at all.
How on earth? Walfred let his puzzlement show plainly. At that, Nivi waved a hand like it was nothing.
"It’s thanks to my ultimate skill."
"Ultimate skill?"
"Yes. I have a skill that detects the single most lethal attribute threatening me and grants me resistance to it that’s basically immunity."
The ultimate skill of the light attribute.
Universal Adaptation.
A passive skill that automatically detects the attribute threatening the caster’s survival and raises resistance to that attribute by up to one hundred percent.
The moment he heard the explanation.
’That’s an insane skill.’
Walfred clicked his tongue in disbelief.
That meant she could survive perfectly fine not just in a place like this, but in some region where the ground boiled with lava.
A skill that let her adapt to any environment.
He was still marveling at how broken it was when.
"By the way..."
Nivi spoke up out of the blue.
With a look on her face that said she had a question.
"If you’re in here, does that mean a White Whale subjugation is under way in New America too?"
"That’s right."
"And the commander is Elma?"
"You know Elma?"
"A little. Our guilds cooperated a few times before the Antarctica gate was liberated."
Nivi nodded as she said it.
A faint smile touched her lips as she mentioned Elma’s name, which suggested they’d had some rapport in the past.
"Then Elma must be around here somewhere too..."
"No. I’m the only one who came in."
"What? You came in here alone?"
Nivi’s eyes widened.
Her expression was pure astonishment.
Seeing her reaction, Walfred explained the situation leading up to his entering the gate. When he’d finished laying out the whole story, her eyes went even wider.
"You cut the White Whale’s body in half...?"
"I did."
Walfred answered evenly.
Like he was describing something utterly mundane.
Nivi stared at him with a blank look on her face. Then, as if something had just occurred to her, her eyes went round and she cried out.
"Hold on! Is your name, by any chance..."
"Walfred."
"...!"
At the name he’d finally given.
Shock bloomed across Nivi’s face.
Her light blue eyes shook violently, as though an earthquake had struck. A moment later, mouth hanging open, she asked as if to confirm it.
"Th, the monster who took down the Spirit King?!"
Calling a person a monster to his face.
Walfred’s brow furrowed.
Meanwhile, now that she knew his identity and what had happened outside, Nivi’s face turned serious and she nodded to herself.
"...I see. That explains it."
"Explains what?"
"I’d been wondering why the White Whale suddenly made a new clone. I never imagined that was going on outside."
"A clone?"
Not an ice illusion?
He asked it with clear doubt in his voice, but Nivi seemed lost in thought and said nothing for a while. Walfred watched her face in silence.
Then it came to him. Nivi had been stuck in this place for a full week.
’In that case...’
What abilities the White Whale possessed.
Or information about the White Whale’s true body. Wouldn’t she know at least some of that? Decision made, Walfred opened his mouth to start digging for information.
But at that moment.
Nivi beat him to it.
"...I’ll work with you."
"What?"
"I’ll share everything I’ve seen and been through in here, so you help me in return."
Her light blue eyes shone with desperation.
She clearly wanted something, either from this space or from the White Whale itself. Rather than answer straight away, Walfred gave her something noncommittal.
"Let me hear it first."
"Thank you."
Had she taken that as a yes?
Nivi bowed her head politely.
A moment later, she began laying out everything she had seen and experienced in this place over the past week.