Snowy Mountains (1)
Ahh, so cold.
The chill seeping into my entire body forced my eyes open.
A familiar gray ceiling... no, not quite?
"What is this place?"
I bolted upright and looked up at the sky.
Something pure white was falling from the grayish sky.
"Whoa, it's snow."
Snow—and a massive blizzard at that.
Looking around, front, back.
Every direction was piled high with snow.
And there were quite a few bare trees without leaves.
"Guess this is the Snowy Mountains."
As a kid, I'd gone hiking the day after a big snowfall. This was exactly what a winter mountain looked like.
But why was I on a mountain?
"And it's pretty damn cold."
My whole body was shivering uncontrollably.
Now that I looked, I was barely covered by a thin scrap of cloth.
I wanted to keep standing here soaking in the snow, but I had to give up for now.
Getting buried in snow sounded great, but not if it meant freezing to death.
Hmm, though on second thought, going out buried in snow might not be so bad.
Anyway.
"Guess I'll head down from here."
I had no idea where this was, but it was a mountain, so there had to be a village or something nearby.
Crunch crunch. While savoring the unique sound of bare feet stepping into snow as I descended,
Thud.
"Ow."
I'd bumped my head on something.
I thought maybe I'd been staring at the falling snow and slammed into a tree, but no—that wasn't it.
There was a clear downhill path right in front of me.
Except...
Thud thud.
I felt an invisible wall.
"Tch, a Barrier, huh."
Oh, I'd always wanted to say that line at least once.
Guess it happens here of all places.
Anyway.
I poked at the Barrier blocking my path a few more times.
Unfortunately, it didn't shatter, so I leaned my right hand against it and skirted sideways along it.
"It's all blocked off."
This Barrier encircled the mountain peak.
Like it was meant to trap something inside.
Still, the Barrier was pretty expansive, so I had a decent range to move around in.
"Huh, so does that mean I can't get out of here?"
Freezing to death surrounded by snow—pretty romantic way to go, heh heh.
Regrettably, while searching for a nice spot to die, I spotted a cave.
Looks like snow burial wasn't in the cards.
It was just simple hunger, really.
"Maybe there's some mushrooms in the cave or something."
The cave I ducked into to escape the blizzard turned out deeper than I expected.
I'd only gone deep inside hoping to find mushrooms or maybe a tasty, healthy snake.
But then...
[....]
"A giant lizard!"
I spotted a snake bigger than I'd imagined.
It was pure white all over, and it even had wings.
Pretty cool-looking.
More lizard than snake in appearance, but they're the same family, right?
Anyway.
"Hello?"
[....]
"Hey, why aren't you saying hi back?"
[How did a human get in here?]
"Oh, you can talk."
But the way it spoke was weird.
Its mouth hadn't moved at all, yet the voice echoed in my head.
Do all the lizards around here talk like this?
"You talk in such a mysterious way."
[Answer me, human. How did a puny thing like you enter this body's domain?]
"Huh? I just walked in. Like this."
Step step. I walked right up to the lizard.
Man, this place was totally different from outside. Nice and warm.
As the numbness from the cold thawed out, I started to feel something.
Or rather, I didn't feel something.
"What the...?"
I lifted the cloth I was wearing.
...Gone.
Hmm, this was a shock. Did it freeze off and fall?
"Hey, got a mirror? I need to check something."
[...No mirror, but there's a small pool of water over there.]
"Whoa, thanks!"
I headed in the direction the white lizard indicated and found a pretty big pool.
Not just a puddle—a small lake, really.
And the water was crystal clear, reflecting my image sharply from above like a mirror.
"Oh..."
That's when I realized my body was different from usual.
The first thing that caught my eye was the silver hair—super long.
Next were my eyes: different colors in each one.
I stripped off the rag that barely qualified as clothes and inspected every inch of my body.
"I'm a girl."
It hadn't frozen off—I'd turned into a girl.
I was a lot shorter now, and my limbs were slimmer.
"Eh, doesn't really matter."
This body might even be better than my old one.
With my original body, I'd gotten suspicious stares more than once for rolling around in snowfields.
This kid-like body might work better.
Anyway.
I scampered back to where the lizard was, and it lowered its head toward me.
Up close, this lizard was way bigger than I thought.
"Staring that close is kinda embarrassing."
[I'm not admiring your beauty.]
"So you think I'm not pretty?"
[I've seen countless humans, but you're the first like this. To react so casually before this body...]
Who do you think you are?
Famous or something?
[Can't you tell by looking? This body is the supreme existence—a dragon.]
"...Still just a big lizard, right?"
[W-what...!]
I knew what a dragon was.
Basically top of the species food chain, super OP strong, that kinda thing.
But I wasn't into fantasy novels or comics.
Why waste time on that when there were funner things?
[You insolent human—play with you a little and you get cocky!]
The dragon, which had been lying lazily in place, rose up.
Then it opened its mouth wide, and the air around us got sucked toward it.
Uh oh.
That looked dangerous.
"Um, were you maybe thinking of sparing me—"
Kwaaaaa!!
The gathered and compressed air formed a massive orb in the dragon's mouth.
And it blasted straight at me.
I tried to dodge, but it was too late.
The last thing I saw was a blinding white light, cold enough to freeze my whole body solid.
Hit dead-on, I died right there...
"...Huh?"
I pried open my tightly shut eyes and checked my body.
The cloth I'd been wearing was shredded, leaving me stark naked.
Hmm, a bit embarrassing.
But anyway, that wasn't the important part right now.
"I'm alive?"
Aside from my clothes being gone, my body was perfectly fine.
No injuries at all—in fact, it felt refreshingly cool.
Like standing in front of a fan on a hot summer day.
"You weren't just trying to scare me... were you?"
I'd half-thought it was a kind-hearted dragon messing around with me, but turning around erased that idea.
Everything behind where I'd been standing was frozen solid.
The ground back there had turned into Antarctic ice.
I hopped over to check it out.
"Yup yup."
Oh, harder than I expected.
Felt like ice, but it didn't crumble even when I jumped on it.
[How did a mere human dodge my attack?]
"Eh, I wasn't even trying to dodge."
I just took it head-on?
[So you're saying a human took my attack and is standing there unscathed? Impossible. Even that arrogant fool who called himself a Swordmaster ended up with a severe heart condition...]
I ignored the dragon's even more dumbfounded expression from earlier and touched the frozen ground.
It didn't seem like the dragon could hurt me right now anyway.
The texture was soft and fluffy.
Huh, no way.
"Hey, dragon? Is this... snow?"
[....]
"Um, staring at me without answering is kinda embarrassing."
[Ice Breath. Technically ice, but it has the side effect of producing a bit of snow.]
"Whoa, really? Can you teach me how?"
[? Teach you what?]
What a dumb question.
Ice Breath, obviously.
[How could a human possibly use a dragon's exclusive breath? It's not even magic.]
"Is there magic that makes snow?"
[Of course.]
"Then teach me?"
[And your payment?]
"Hmm, want me to make you a snowman? I'm great at snowmen."
I'd actually won first place in our neighborhood snowman contest once.
Well, it was the kids' division.
[Begone.]
Kwaaaaa!
This time it wasn't Ice Breath—just a blast of wind that sent me whooshing out of the cave.
"Not gonna teach me easily, huh."
I considered just building an igloo and making snowmen to live out my days, but nah.
Now I knew there was magic to make snow whenever I wanted—I couldn't just sit still.
"Gotta come back tomorrow."
In a dark room, a man who had once been the continent's Swordmaster but was now just an old geezer lay on his bed.
Cough cough!
"Father! Someone, call the priests—"
"I'm fine, Ailet... cough."
"But..."
"Seems my heart froze up for a bit."
Her father spoke calmly, but his daughter, Ailet Asgar, was anything but.
Twenty years ago, the Ice Dragon that terrorized the entire continent.
After dueling it, her father—once the continent's strongest sword, Daimon Asgar—had fallen gravely ill.
A nameless disease that occasionally froze his heart solid, leading to death.
Daimon had poured all his spirit into halting the heart-freezing, but that was in the past.
For the now-frail and aged Daimon, it was the exception.
Ailet gripped her dying father's hand tight.
And swore in her heart.
She would inherit her father's sword, slay that Ice Dragon,
and free her father from his suffering.
"...Huh?"
[You have absolutely no talent for snow magic.]
This, I hadn't seen coming.