The Winter Whale and the Elf
“Nnngh…”
The moment I opened my eyes and tried to move, a faint groan slipped from my lips. There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t ache—arms, legs, lower back, even my neck. It felt exactly like the muscle soreness that comes after a brutal workout.
Then something damp dragged across my cheek. Frowning at the oddly familiar sensation, I turned my head and found a massive horse’s face staring right at me.
“Nightmare?”
Phuh—
Nightmare looked at me and kept licking my cheek, as if sulking over how long I’d taken to wake up.
I pushed his enormous head aside and sat up. The surroundings were a little dim, but I had no trouble making out the landscape around me.
“Where is this…”
No wonder it had felt so dark. Enormous walls of ice hemmed us in on every side. Apparently, after taking that giant bird’s breath attack head-on, we’d fallen straight down here.
A crevasse, if you wanted the technical term.
I gazed up at the soft moonlight filtering down and let out a sigh. The light spilling from the sky caught on the transparent ice walls, bathing the interior in a gentle glow.
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
Pruuh—
Nightmare answered by springing to his feet as if to show off how perfectly fine he was. The fact that both of us could still move meant the mana barrier I’d thrown up in a panic had done its job.
I stroked Nightmare’s head and looked up.
“Think you can climb out?”
Nightmare tilted his gaze skyward. After a moment’s consideration, he stretched out a foreleg and tapped the clear ice wall.
Curious, I watched closely—and with a sharp crack, crystalline spikes sprouted from his hooves. He drove those crystals into the ice and scraped downward with a powerful shove of his legs.
It looked exactly like the spiked boots climbers wear to scale snow-covered mountains.
“So you can make it up?”
Pheeheehing—!
Nightmare flicked his tail and stamped his hooves in answer. I swung up onto his back at once.
With me astride him, Nightmare began driving his crystal spikes into the face of the ice and racing straight up the vertical wall.
The transparent ice seemed to have preserved the ecosystem of this place exactly as it had once been. Fish-type monsters remained frozen within it, and deeper still, the hazy outline of some colossal creature could just barely be made out.
But I didn’t get long to study them. The moment Nightmare’s legs kicked off the ice, pure-white fractures spiderwebbed outward and swallowed everything from view.
Crack—!
Even racing vertically against gravity, Nightmare moved as though he were galloping across open ground. Scaling a wall dozens of meters high took him barely three seconds.
Thwip-thwip-thwip—!
Just as the fractures in the ice wall began to spread, Nightmare burst free into the open sky—unable to check the momentum of his climb, he simply launched himself upward.
A brief weightlessness washed over me, as if I were flying. Wind rushed in from every direction as I looked down over the frozen white expanse below.
A forest locked in ice. Towering snow-capped peaks. And a vast lake.
I frowned at the sight. In a region cold enough to freeze everything around it, an unfrozen lake made no sense at all.
Of course, I knew it was foolish to measure this world by the common sense I carried from my own. Still watching the water’s surface shimmer faintly blue, I had to turn my head—Nightmare was already beginning his descent.
Clack— clack—!
The crystal footholds shattered into white powder and scattered like snow. Nightmare settled gently among the frozen trees—a perfect landing, nothing like the wild charge that had come before.
We had arrived in a pure-white mountain forest where the clouds themselves seemed to have settled to earth. Trees frozen solid bloomed with white ice-flowers in place of green leaves, and snow mixed with cloud drifted through the air like mist.
Holding Nightmare’s reins, I peered around. The ice coating the trees was so thick I wondered whether anything beneath it could still be alive.
A conveniently sized icicle caught my eye. I snapped it off and bit down.
Crunch—
The icicle shattered refreshingly between my teeth, leaving a faintly chalky taste. Crunching on it, I pushed on through the white mist.
I could have used the Guiding Star to find the way back to base camp, but for the moment I wanted to explore this mysterious mountain forest that had appeared before me.
I wandered aimlessly for quite some time.
Then I noticed something strange—the clouds filling the air around us seemed to be getting sucked toward a single point.
Light snow rose on the wind and drifted away with the clouds. I stared blankly at the spectacle.
And in that instant—
I found myself face-to-face with an enormous eye emerging from between the clouds. At first I didn’t even realize it was an eye. It glittered such a vast, brilliant blue that I thought a new wall of ice had simply unfolded before me.
But it was an eye. And just as I recognized it, it seemed to recognize me—the great pupil within shifted and focused on me.
My mind went blank before a living creature so far beyond the bounds of comprehension.
This was my third encounter. The previous times I had only watched from a distance—but now we stood before each other, fully aware.
Then a massive eyelid swept down like a falling curtain. Even the simple act of blinking stirred a considerable wind.
I swallowed hard and gently tugged Nightmare’s reins, trying to move as quietly as possible so as not to provoke the colossal being before us.
But Nightmare didn’t turn. Instead, he took a step closer to the giant eye.
Crunch—
The snow beneath his hooves broke apart, and as the wind carried the clouds away, the full form of the enormous creature was revealed.
“Whoa…”
A gasp of pure awe escaped me. I stared, spellbound, at the gigantic whale floating in the sky. Then the great whale looking down at me began to move one of its fins. A single outstretched flipper was large enough to blanket this entire mountain.
Whoooosh—!
Even moving slowly, the wind generated by that immense mass blasted every scrap of snow from the mountainside. The fin came to rest right in front of Nightmare and me—as if inviting us to climb aboard.
My thoughts tangled into a knot.
Was it really all right to follow this giant whale’s invitation and step onto its fin?
It didn’t seem intent on harming me. Nightmare, who normally reacted instantly to any threat, was standing perfectly still—that much was certain.
And yet I hesitated, simply because of that overwhelming size.
“Hmm…”
The great whale waited for me with patient stillness. I don’t know how long passed before I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow and tugged Nightmare’s reins.
Crunch— crunch—
Understanding my intent, Nightmare moved forward—across the white snowfield and up onto the whale’s enormous fin.
As we walked along it, I noticed the seed I’d tucked into my leather pouch reacting violently.
Curious, I pulled it out—and sure enough. Resting on my palm, the seed was radiating a gentle green warmth.
“Don’t tell me…”
Clutching the seed, I looked toward the whale’s back. White clouds still wrapped it so thickly I couldn’t see beyond them, but an energy similar to the seed’s was emanating from the other side.
As if drawn by something, I pulled Nightmare’s reins and climbed up onto the cloud-shrouded body of the whale.
The whale’s back was truly vast. If you tore the capital of the Karuma Empire free and set it floating in the sky, it might have been about this size.
We walked for a long while. Then the white clouds veiling my sight fell away, and a new landscape unfolded before my eyes.
What glittered green were leaves overflowing with life. What twisted and sprawled in every direction was a colossal wall grown entirely of living wood.
I stared at the enormous forest in stunned silence. Did every giant monster in this world have a hobby of carrying a forest around on its back?
The idle thought had barely formed when the densely tangled trees rumbled and began to part.
What they formed was a narrow passage of thick tree roots—a corridor that seemed to pierce straight through the entire forest, stretching on without end.
Just then, the little breeze that always hovered near me tugged at a strand of my golden hair, as if urging me to go inside.
Having come this far, turning back wasn’t really an option. I swallowed dryly and started walking toward the wooden passage with Nightmare. The moment we stepped through the entrance, a rich fragrance of grass washed over us, and vitality began to well up through my body.
Was it responding to the forest’s energy? The seed in my hand blazed with light. The green life force that poured from it began making flowers bloom all around us.
I’d never experienced flowers blossoming wherever my footsteps fell. Side by side with Nightmare, I walked on in a daze toward the far end.
Clack— clack— clack—
Listening to the sound of Nightmare’s hooves, I walked for what felt like ages. At last, the wooden passage that had seemed endless reached its end.
I stepped out and raised a hand to shade my brow. The light pouring from the sky was dazzling.
Beyond the passage lay a city built atop a colossal tree. Broad, sturdy branches served as roads, and wooden buildings sat beautifully upon them.
It felt almost like looking at the forest where that monster called the King had lived.
Then a small shadow leapt down from high above. The height alone should have made for a stomach-dropping spectacle, yet the figure approached with movements so light it seemed to be walking on the wind itself.
Platinum-white hair fluttered like loose threads of silk. Riding the breeze came a female elf, her ears long and tapering to the sides. She landed before me, green eyes sparkling.
“Ya chakaŭ. vy.”
A soft, gentle voice spilled from her lips. But I couldn’t understand a word of it.
“Hello…?”
“El’fy…”
Just as I couldn’t understand her, she seemed unable to understand me. The elf woman made a troubled face at my greeting, then turned toward the great tree and murmured something under her breath.