The Northern Expedition (6)
Just what had happened while I wasn't looking?
They couldn't have all simply flocked north for a picnic in the snow. They had to be there for a reason...
I needed to figure out what was going on.
I spun the camera this way and that, spying on the streets of Montegros. It seemed to be evening; smoke curled lazily from the chimneys of every house.
"The weather's gotten a lot warmer lately. Doesn't feel like it should be this mild yet."
"Right? When I woke up this morning, the snow only came up to my waist."
"Tell me about it. It ought to be getting a whole lot colder still, but it's this warm already. I heard the eternal snow on the Mount of Demonic Beasts has started melting a little."
"What? How does that even melt? Was it ever supposed to melt in the first place?"
That was the conversation of residents dressed in nothing more than thin long sleeves and trousers — a stark contrast to the people walking right beside them, bundled up like snowmen in every scrap of cold-weather gear they owned. Those lightly dressed ones had to be locals of Montegros, didn't they?
Even through the screen, the cold was brutal enough to make you shiver, and yet they were casually complaining about the heat. Only a native could make a judgment like that.
People who live in cold countries are all a little unhinged, whether it's this world or that one.
Nothing useful there. I spun the camera again. In a situation like this, the fastest way to get a handle on things was to seek out the people at the top — the ones in charge.
Click.
I found Friga's name in the favorites list and selected it. Easy as it was to forget given her rough-and-tumble manner, Friga was still the only daughter of a ducal house.
And the princess of Montegros, no less. She's got to have something useful.
The screen shifted.
A grand chamber that looked like it belonged in a romance fantasy novel appeared. In the middle of the enormous bed at its center, a large bulge rose and fell in a slow, gentle rhythm.
Friga was asleep. I began rummaging through the castle's interior, hunting for anything of use.
Here and there, people who looked like maids were hauling large crates and luggage, while others who looked like knights and hunters bustled about with equal urgency.
It was the dead of night over there, and yet this many people were rushing around?
Something's definitely going on.
Combat personnel — knights, hunters, warriors — were everywhere in numbers that felt excessive. At this rate, it almost looked like...
"Like a war's about to break out..."
Even saying it myself, the word felt ominous.
War.
With whom?
If it were a war against demons or something of that sort, I could simply step in and help. But what if it were a war between humans?
Would I, as a god, be obligated to stop it? Just because I personally didn't want to watch a war?
And what if it weren't a simple territorial invasion, but a war of vengeance — one where each side wouldn't rest until the other was dead? A fight to avenge a parent or a sibling, where nothing short of the enemy's blood would satisfy them...
Would that even be the kind of thing that stopped just because I told them to? Telling them not to would amount to nothing more than forcing them to grit their teeth and endure.
...I don't know.
It was a dilemma I'd never had to face as a human. Now that I was the god of a world, though, it was a question I needed to sit with, at least a little.
Beast Subjugation Stage 5 — Boss Raid Unlocked!
A massive message blotted out the screen.
Thankfully, it didn't seem to be the human-versus-human war I'd been fretting over. I shoved the problem that would need long, careful thought off to one side of my mind.
No point thrashing through it in a hurry when I wasn't going to find an answer right now.
I'd take my time with it later.
"A boss raid, huh. It's been a while."
What kind of miserable bastard was going to entertain me this time?
Whoosh!
High on the Mount of Demonic Beasts — a place so forbidding even the wind was said to rest before climbing further — near the sky itself.
At the towering summit lay a vast field of eternal snow, frozen solid through every season. Traces of time, layered grain by grain from the distant age when the mountain first rose.
And yet, in that undisputed domain of snow and ice, a wall of dark-crimson flame stood tall.
With no firewood, no hearth, no kindling, the flame burned alone — swaying and dancing with an almost seductive grace, as if trying to entrance whoever looked upon it.
Whoosh!
Unmoved by the fierce wind, it steadily swelled. The ominous dark-crimson fire burned and burned again.
Crack... crack...
And so the eternal snow began to melt. The load-bearing mass that had held its own weight for ages softened into a fragile structure; the snow-packed surface liquefied and began to flow.
Gaps opened in the melting snowpack. Water ran through those gaps and widened them further. The widened gaps became an unstable structure, and the ground itself began to slide.
The vast field of eternal snow moved — slowly, inexorably — flowing down the mountain. Very slowly. Very carefully.
The Great Demon nodded in satisfaction as he watched the scene unfold.
He could feel it even from here.
Down the mountain, inside that shoddy excuse for a fortress wall, humans seethed with a nauseating energy. The sight of so much repulsive holy power gathered in one place was enough to turn his stomach.
Didn't they look just like a swarm of insects nesting in the damp, dark corner of a cave?
A nest of foul bugs that made the skin crawl just looking at them. He would have loved nothing more than to go down there himself and burn every last one of them to ash, but...
Gloop. Gloop!
He could not leave this place.
Behind him floated dozens of enormous circular ovals — circular gateways hanging in midair as if suspended by invisible hands, each one continuously convulsing as it spat out something black.
Splat!
Something that had dropped from a gateway like sticky filth heaved itself upright.
"Kiiirk! The surface! It's the surface!"
"You there — gloop! You! Get over here and stand — gloop — properly!"
Demons.
Gateways the Great Demon had forged using vast quantities of his own blood as a medium — and through them, demons crawling up from the Abyss. At a glance, their numbers approached the hundreds.
Even for a Great Demon using his own blood as the medium, creating and maintaining dozens of dimensional rifts simultaneously was a taxing feat. He could not abandon this post.
As a consolation, he had spent a little blood on a small scheme... and the results looked better than expected.
The Great Demon chuckled with satisfaction.
Melt the frozen eternal snow and sweep away the insect-humans' fortress. Drive the demons and the hunting hounds to slaughter the humans thrown into chaos.
And then claim that shining Star-light.
Ah, how sweet and exhilarating it would be. Devouring Star-light that blazed so brilliantly — the lizard from before wouldn't even be worth comparing.
Shudder!
Lost in the ecstasy to come, the Great Demon trembled lightly.
Those seven eyes of the Constellation of the Eye shining in the sky above felt close enough to pluck from the heavens right then and there.
The raid was open. No time to hesitate. I started it immediately.
Beast Subjugation Stage 5 — Boss Raid Commencing!
Adventurers who die in the raid cannot be revived!
A red warning message flashed and blinked. In the lower-right corner of the message, a tiny Kenelm peered up at me with a worried expression, as if fretting over how hastily I'd started the raid —
No need to worry.
With the power of my paycheck account, I was a god, and my characters were invincible.
The boss would be free-range fried chicken.
You may form a Scout Party of up to 6 adventurers.
The Scout Party will reconnoiter the raid zone and gather various information — even if that means risking combat with the enemy.
With a bit of luck, you may even be able to disrupt the enemy's plans in advance.
📍 Objective: Summit of the Mount of Demonic Beasts
I skimmed the message. Nothing complicated; it didn't take long to understand.
Please form a Reconnaissance Party!
The screen changed, and a formation window appeared. Six empty slots.
"For something like this, you want pure combat power."
I tapped through the six slots and quickly assembled a recon team: Kenis, Friga, Iscal, Hans, Estel, and one nameless holy knight.
Looking at what amounted to an ace party, my chest swelled with grandeur. The moment I hit Deploy, a warning window popped up.
Personnel assigned to the Reconnaissance Party cannot participate in the Boss Raid until they return!
Deploy anyway?
"Okay, that changes things."
Sending my elite members on recon only for the boss raid to start without them would be a disaster. I cleared every slot and started picking carefully from scratch.
I'd put one hero-tier adventurer on the recon team for combat readiness, and fill the rest with nameless holy knights, hunters, and warriors.
The moment night gave way to dawn, the six-member recon party began climbing the mountain. Through fierce blizzards and sheer, knife-edge cliffs, their steps never faltered.
Their destination: the summit of the Mount of Demonic Beasts.
The Mount of Demonic Beasts had always been shrouded in fog even on the map, but as the recon party advanced, the fog peeled away and the visible area on the map steadily expanded.
It was a lot like sending workers to scout the map in that national-sensation game that used to be popular.
"Nothing particularly unusual so far."
The recon party climbed without incident. When the sun set, they dug temporary burrows or built shelters to rest; when it rose again, they resumed the ascent.
And then, as they neared the mountain's midsection—
The screen suddenly flickered, and an unfamiliar top-down combat view appeared.
Six recon members stood against a vast snowfield backdrop, facing four werewolves. These were 3D character models of a quality utterly different from the stubby little SD figures I'd been used to.
Trees, rocks, hills, and other terrain features between the two groups looked just as vivid — so real they seemed ready to punch through the screen.
"What the hell is this..."
I was still reeling from a combat display so high-quality it put every previous fight to shame when a message appeared.
The party members begin combat!
Six warriors kicked off the snow and charged.