A Meaningful Reunion
The monsters that heard Neveterde's voice moved as if entranced.
And whenever they crossed paths with one another, they fought without restraint, as though determined to eliminate every rival.
To anyone watching, it was pure madness.
To lose all reason over nothing more than a female's voice, to thrash about like that… it was something I simply could not understand.
This was the true nature of Neveterde's voice.
Temptation.
To human ears it was merely a pleasant tone, but to monsters it was nothing short of a detonator.
And that was what had forged the peculiar relationship between Neveterde and Neveumano.
Neveterde was constantly threatened because of that distinctive voice of hers.
What kind of threats, exactly… I'd rather not elaborate.
What mattered was that while the others slaughtered one another, Neveterde had always managed to slip away unscathed.
Then one day, Neveterde met Neveumano.
The hungry Neveumano tried to devour her, so Neveterde loosed a seductive roar, hoping to set other monsters against it and escape in the chaos.
But Neveumano barely reacted to her voice at all.
Its senses were simply too dull.
Instead, it hunted and ate everything that had followed the sound of her call.
Drunk on a female's voice, the monsters charged Neveumano without even knowing what they were attacking.
But Neveumano was a Supreme-grade monster — the kind even upper-tier beasts had to yield before.
Its powerful arms stirred the wind with every swing, and its hide was tough and unyielding.
Without needing to eat Neveterde at all, Neveumano filled its belly right then and there.
A sated Neveumano was not particularly aggressive. So it didn't bother chasing her.
Neveterde watched that Neveumano carefully, and after a couple of confirmations, the two of them settled into a symbiotic relationship.
Neveterde would roar and lure the monsters in; Neveumano would devour whatever came.
And so the Snow Woman found a sanctuary where she could rest in safety, and the Snow Man never had to go hungry again.
How wonderful. Truly wonderful.
A deeply moving story.
But the ending was a tragedy.
In the end, both of them were beings that had been dragged against the current of time and cast upon this land.
Supreme-grade monsters swept up by Miteraos's power, whether they willed it or not.
Even if they were nothing more than creatures living out their lives on this snowfield — even if they were not inherently harmful to humans…
They still had to die.
If that was the path that led to Miteraos.
"…That way, huh."
Rough monster tracks remained where trees had been snapped clean through.
Pina and I kept following them.
If this monster happened to be heading the wrong direction, we'd be completely out of luck.
Still, it was a monster — I figured its instincts had to be good for something.
Then Pina called out to me in a rush.
"Alice-nim!"
"…What?"
"Th-there's a person here…"
What Pina pointed to was the corpse of someone who had frozen to death.
Something had gnawed on it, and the body had frozen solid into a bluish mass — the sight alone made my brow crease with pity.
The cold kept the stench of decay from rising much.
Pina's expression was far from good. She clutched at her own throat, making a low, pained sound.
"Ugh…"
Suddenly I thought of the time her father and his friends had been killed.
I had been more detached than expected, but Pina still seemed to carry it all inside her.
Well — that was something she should never forget.
Judging by the degree of decay, a long time had passed since death.
From the hunter's gear the corpse still wore, it was clearly one of the hunters who had come to survey this land.
I patted the back of Pina, whose face had gone pale.
"It's okay. You're okay. Let's mark the location separately."
"Y-yes…"
I unfolded the crumpled map in my hand and let out a sigh.
Pina asked me,
"So are we just going to keep going like this?"
"We'll recover them later. All we'll be able to do is burn them, but…"
In the game, General Gero had been the one to order that kind of work.
Reality was different. Gero hadn't said a word, but I wasn't cold enough to just leave a fallen hunter behind.
"What matters is this way."
Pina, who had been struggling to pull her feet away from the corpse, nodded.
The farther we advanced, the more ominous the surroundings became.
Trees lay broken in every direction, and several monsters lay dead where they had fallen.
The corpses were fresh, still spilling warm blood.
Whether they had fought each other to mutual destruction through blood loss, or something had appeared and slaughtered them all…
"…This."
Examining the wounds carefully, most of them seemed to have been inflicted by a single monster.
It wasn't Neveumano. This one had claws sharp as blades and used its teeth as well.
I quickened my pace.
"……There."
A clearing in the middle of the forest.
I pressed my back against a tree and hid myself.
Then I carefully leaned out and took stock of the situation.
Neveumano was nowhere to be seen.
Only Neveterde stood in that place.
Seeing the two who were always together now separated, it seemed they hadn't found each other yet.
"Is that… a Luga-lac?"
"Looks like it."
"It looks different somehow."
What was fighting Neveterde was a Luga-lac. And a pure white one at that.
From the wounds covering its entire body, blood-steam was pouring out — this was no ordinary Luga-lac.
Old memories came flooding back, vivid and warm.
It's been a long time. Even if the color is different from back then.
That creature was a war god that faced the world with a single eye.
The One-Eyed Luga-lac.
A monster that held a great deal of meaning for me.
The Luga-lac snarled at Neveterde, who kept slipping out of its grasp.
— — —!!!
Neveterde was dodging those attacks — if you could even call them that — those obsessive movements of the Luga-lac.
The Snow Woman, Neveterde.
She stood as tall as two humans stacked one atop the other.
Her blue eyes were white and seamless like a bird's, utterly transparent.
A thin veil of ice clung to her head and fluttered like hair.
Her overall form resembled a human's, with elegant curves that marked her as female.
But she was absolutely not human.
White fur blanketed her entire body over pale skin, everything except her face, growing darker the farther down it went until it turned black.
Her feet were shaped like a bird's talons — alien against that fluffy torso.
The black, razor-sharp claws stood out especially.
By contrast, her four long, humanlike fingers were tipped with sharp frost claws.
Pina, seeing Neveterde, let out a small breath of admiration.
"…She's somehow elegant. She doesn't even look like a monster."
"Yeah."
A monster that didn't look like a monster.
That was the Snow Woman, Neveterde.
She was also the monster with the most artwork devoted to her.
Suddenly Biopia came to mind.
Biopia, who wrote sensual novels about love between monsters…
I shook my head.
I had no desire to entertain such horrifying imaginings any further.
Watching the situation unfold, Pina looked at me and asked,
"What should we do about this?"
"Hmm."
Neveterde was not an aggressive monster.
If anything, she was a creature desperately focused on her own survival.
With Neveumano absent, whenever a monster appeared and threatened her, she would throw the surroundings into chaos with that cry of hers.
…Should I kill them both?
But in my judgment, taking down Neveterde was still premature.
To find Neveumano, having Neveterde around would make things considerably easier.
Even in the game, the two of them occasionally wandered apart. They weren't the type that stuck together every single moment.
In those situations, Neveterde was simply a non-aggressive monster, while Neveumano was a conditionally non-aggressive one depending on its satiety.
Even if Neveterde saw a player, she would only look curious — too wary to approach or attack first.
But the moment a player showed any sign of hostility, she would immediately roar and call for Neveumano.
Which meant that Neveumano, at the very least, was not in this coniferous forest.
No matter how much she cried out, it never appeared.
"First, we kill the Luga-lac."
I'd decided.
Better to use one to catch both than to kill one and then go hunting hard for the other.
I took up my dual blades and steadied my breathing.
Stay calm. No need to rush. Always mind the breath.
I let out a small sigh and stepped out from behind the tree.
My eyes met Neveterde's blue ones.
I pulled my gaze away from her and charged straight at the Luga-lac.
With its one remaining eye, the Luga-lac somehow managed to register me.
A sixth sense honed through battles that danced on the edge of life and death, no doubt.
The Luga-lac shot backward like an arrow and slipped past my dual blades.
I planted myself with my back to Neveterde and faced the Luga-lac.
— — —KRRRRrrrr….
White breath burst from its maw, and a faint froth showed at the edges.
Its eye had gone wild — I could feel how thoroughly worked up it was.
It must have hated me for interrupting its good time.
All I could manage was a silent apology…
Even a battle-scarred warrior was, in the end, just another beast before Neveterde's temptation.
Damn seductress… turning even a brawler who knows nothing but fighting into this.
I found myself resenting Neveterde for no good reason.
I turned my head slightly and looked at her.
True to form, Neveterde did nothing at all about my sudden appearance.
Her eyes held pure curiosity toward me as a living thing. Was this the first time she'd ever seen a human?
Looking at her made me feel strange too.
Somehow, it felt like looking at a person.
I tore my gaze from Neveterde and fixed it back on the Luga-lac.
Then I reversed the grip on the blade in my left hand and settled into my stance.
The first time we met, I was at a disadvantage in every way.
No armor, weak weapons. And I still wasn't used to this changed body.
But now it's different.
Back then I had to allow several wounds. Now I'm confident I can take it down clean — without a single scratch.
That wasn't empty talk. I meant it.
Even if this creature was a battle-hardened warrior that had survived death's door countless times — it wasn't only Luga-lacs that had been through that.
This felt like a revenge match, and the strength in my grip grew steadily fiercer.
This reunion is quite meaningful for us.
Even if the Luga-lac doesn't know me, this moment feels deeply fated to me.
After all, it was a Luga-lac that helped me meet Noah — that pulled me out into the world.
Well… "helped" might not be the right word… Anyway.
— — —KRRRRRR…!!
The Luga-lac scraped the ground with its forelegs, baring its hostility.
From the snarl that peeled back its fangs and the way its body kept twitching, it was about to charge.
I pushed down the joy swelling in my chest and widened my eyes.
Every nerve and every sense in my body locked onto the Luga-lac.
Then it lunged.
I stepped forward in the same instant, matching its flow.
Clang—!
The bladed bone jutting from the elbow of its foreleg met my dual blades head-on.
My opponent intended to go all out. To claim Neveterde for itself, no doubt.
Whatever the reason, I figured meeting it with everything I had was only proper.
The coniferous forest filled with the heat of battle, swirling around the Snow Woman.