The Frozen Horizon
I changed course as I'd originally planned. Had things gone as first intended, I would have headed into the conifer forest—but having met and joined forces with Neveterde, I set out instead for the tundra snowfields.
Two sets of footsteps trailed mine. Human footfalls and monster footfalls layered over each other. I wrestled with myself between them. Meeting Neveumano was hardly going to improve our situation.
I had to kill monsters. I always had, and I always would.
That was the only way forward I knew. The only thread I had to follow.
But.
Was that really the only way?
Neveterde and Neveumano… Whatever else they were, both of them had come from another time.
The only one I truly had to kill was Miteraos.
Was there no way to send them back to the time they came from without killing them?
But the thought made me laugh at myself. I couldn't even get my own bearings—who was I to send anyone else back?
This was no time for leisurely musing.
I stood on the hill that marked the boundary between the conifer forest and the tundra, looking down over the terrain below.
It was a harsher land than even the conifer forest. Frozen year-round, almost nothing grew there. Where bare earth showed through, tenacious moss clung in abundance, and trees were rare. Given the environment, even those trees never grew tall—no higher than a person.
If animals hadn't managed to live here either, it would have deserved the name of a dead land more than any wasteland.
White Wolf Luga-lac. Black Bear Orsonero. Saber-toothed Sabertiger. Reindeer Cervona. The white fox—Spirit Fox Reivolpe. And so on.
There were various monsters, but surviving here was hard enough that the variety stayed limited. Far simpler than most other regions.
I pulled out some Thermal Powder and dusted it on to ease the chill settling into my skin.
If I was going to roam this place long-term hunting for Neveumano, securing food was essential. Meat from carnivores like Luga-lac, Orsonero, or Sabertiger was tough and reeked of game—hard to stomach. So the most edible option was the reindeer, Cervona—a lowest-grade monster.
Lowest-grade monsters were easy pickings, after all.
Besides meat, the berries that occasionally grew on the scrub bushes were fine to eat. In Antico you'd have to watch for poison, but this place was so bitterly cold that nothing toxic thrived.
Push deeper and you'd enter the true snowfields—and from there, the land grew truly dire. The snowfields had no trees, no moss—nothing but snow and ice, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Even monsters preferred not to live there if they could help it.
If they could help it.
Given that Neveumano still hadn't shown itself, I figured the snowfields were the most likely place to find it.
"…Let's take it slow."
But charging straight into the snowfields was out of the question. I didn't know the full picture yet, so combing through everything carefully was the better approach.
Running into kingdom soldiers out on patrol could turn into a serious problem. A hunter moving without authorization, breaking the agreement, could look like a lack of trust in the kingdom army—and straying from the designated area could even be handled under military law.
To avoid friction as much as possible, I steered clear of anywhere that still held kingdom soldiers' footprints.
This land is mine, that land is yours. We weren't desk-mates drawing lines between our seats—I didn't have time for that kind of petty nonsense. This was no time for leisurely make-believe.
If General Gero wanted that kind of thing, ignoring him was only natural.
I needed to find Neveumano now and get the hell out of this godforsaken land.
"It's so empty out here."
"Yeah."
Unlike the conifer forest, the tundra offered nowhere to hide—that was its defining trait. If you stumbled into a monster unprepared, running wasn't easy. You had to stand and fight. The truly vicious ones rarely left their own territories, though, so what you usually saw were Cervona or Reivolpe.
"…There's one over there."
"A Reivolpe."
Spirit Fox Reivolpe. A two-tailed fox you could still find even in this era. It was large, but a non-aggressive monster with a gentle temperament. Its thick tails were so good at retaining heat that people supposedly hunted it for them.
The Reivolpe Pina pointed at was hunting. It stood on the empty snowfield, head tilted, listening hard for sounds beneath the snow. Ears pricked, it locked onto something—then leapt high and dove headfirst into the snow.
Thump—!
Only its tails and rear stuck up above the surface; the rest of it vanished into the snow. Both tails stood straight up toward the sky.
To Pina, seeing a Reivolpe for the first time, it must have looked ridiculous.
"…W-what is it doing?"
"Hunting. It eats bugs and mice under the snow."
"Oh, I see…"
"It's a monster you'd find in the polar regions."
"But this isn't the polar region, geographically speaking."
"That's what makes it an Anomaly."
"Ah…"
Pina nodded with a look of understanding.
Idiot.
I turned my gaze to Neveterde. Neveterde seemed intrigued by the Reivolpe's antics—it tilted its head and scraped at the ground with its sharp claws.
I'd rather it didn't try that itself. Its face would definitely crack.
Over the course of our continued exploration, I got a sense of the tundra's ecology.
Buemus—herd cattle that traveled in groups of three or four—dug through the snow to graze on the frozen grass and reeds beneath. When a starving Luga-lac prowled near, eyeing them, they didn't flee from their natural predator. Instead they pressed their rumps together and thrust the horns on their heads forward, blocking the Luga-lac's approach.
The hungry Luga-lac killed one of the Buemus that refused to spare itself wounds for the herd's sake, then withdrew. It had taken horn wounds all over its body too—but that was how you survived on this tundra.
And finally, I killed that Luga-lac.
—KRRRrrr…….
The white Luga-lac's snout shattered against my Famine Sword; its legs and arms were torn open as it collapsed. Even if it didn't die immediately, the steady bleeding and wounds made recovery impossible.
"…Hmph."
I didn't bother wiping the blood from the Famine Sword. The ravenous blade absorbed every drop of blood and scrap of flesh clinging to it on its own, without any help from me.
I would have left it alone if I hadn't had to fight. But the Luga-lac hadn't been satisfied with a single Buemus. Carrying the Buemus carcass in its jaws, it spotted us and made no effort to hide its hostility.
This, too, was an unavoidable choice for our own survival. Luga-lac never backed down from a fight, so it had brought this on itself.
Acting tough when it wasn't even a One-Eyed.
Even if Luga-lac sat high on the food chain, I had killed Disastro—the creature that had reigned at the very top of the pyramid—and forged it into my weapon. A mere middle link like this was no match for me.
I split open the Luga-lac's carcass. No Essence, so nothing of interest. I handed the rest over to Neveterde as food.
Neveterde crunched through the skinned Luga-lac's flesh. Watching Neveterde, Pina spoke to me.
"Even Luga-lac are easy now."
"That's because my weapon got better."
"It's still a mid-grade monster, though…"
They say a craftsman never blames their tools—but for a hunter, blaming your gear was fair game. Equipment was that directly tied to staying alive. If I'd kept using a mediocre iron sword, I'd have died at Disastro.
"The material came from a Supreme-grade monster."
"The destructive power is incredible, though. I've never seen a mid-grade monster go down in a single hit like that. Even the big ones shouldn't be too hard, right?"
Pina said it with cheerful confidence. I allowed myself a small smile, then shook my head.
"I wouldn't know. We'll have to see when we get there."
Better weapon or not, a Supreme-grade monster was still a Supreme-grade monster. They were few in number—not few, unique in this world, as far as I could tell—and so overwhelmingly powerful that even with this weapon, I couldn't dominate them. It would make things a little easier, sure.
"Still, I don't think you'll lose."
"Mm, that much is true."
Suddenly Neveterde turned its head and glanced at us. Maybe it felt awkward eating alone. Neveterde's mouth and hands glistened with Luga-lac blood.
Growl—.
My stomach chose that moment to growl.
We stopped exploring and sat down right there for a simple meal. Mine and Pina's meal was nothing more than a handful of nuts and some jerky. Neveterde, on the other hand, nibbled away at the Luga-lac meat until its belly was round and full. Then it wiped the blood from its face and hands with snow.
Pina watched and smiled softly.
Figuring we'd spend the night there, I dug a shallow pit, stacked dry wood in the center, and lit a fire ahead of time.
I chewed my jerky slowly, gazing out at the tundra horizon. As the evening glow settled, the beauty of this tundra came into its own.
Most striking of all were the monsters heading home to their own territories as the sun went down. Carnivores and herbivores alike walked without distinction. Their steps carried the weight of a hard day's labor. The lower the sun sank, the longer their shadows stretched—and there was something satisfying about watching them.
The Sabertiger walking with its tail in its mouth was the highlight. Cute, for a Sabertiger.
It felt like standing on a pure white savanna.
And through it all, there was no sign of Neveumano whatsoever.
"…Kingdom soldiers."
What I saw instead were kingdom soldiers. They emerged late from where the animals had passed, tiny figures trudging along.
"Uh, should we move?"
"No need."
Honestly, I didn't care whether we ran into them or not. The princess had said she'd take responsibility, and I had nothing to feel guilty about for coming this way.
But their condition looked terrible.
One of the walking soldiers stopped mid-stride and toppled over. I thought for a second he'd just tripped—but he lay motionless on the snowfield, not moving at all.
A chill sensation brushed the back of my neck.
That looks dangerous.
I stood up.