The Village's Hidden Truth
Lee Mina raised her voice at the words of the Ice Snow Strong King, then quickly lowered it again. "Three days?! Why so suddenly..." More than half the investigation period had been cut off as if sliced away.
"It seems pressure came down from above."
"Even so..." Wasn't this deliberately making sure the case could never be properly solved?
"The case itself has already been concluded."
Concluded? There were still unresolved parts, which was why they had received the investigation request. As Lee Mina reached that thought, she realized something. "Don't tell me... it's because of the golem again?"
"Since the belongings of the entire family and bloodstains were detected there, concluding it as the golem's doing was a simple matter."
Even if there were suspicious aspects, it wouldn't draw as much attention as the fact that a monster which had emerged alongside the Ice Snow Strong King when he left the gate had been hiding in the ski resort for nearly several years.
"Then wouldn't that damage the image of the tourist destination?" People would hear that they failed to discover the creature in time and let things reach this point.
"They judged that something of that level would be forgotten with the passage of time." Above all, this place had the rare characteristic of being a ski resort usable 365 days a year, something hard to find anywhere else in the country. And incidents related to monsters had become an everyday occurrence that happened every other day.
"Since a full day has already passed just getting here, that leaves us with practically only two days." The time was far tighter than she had imagined. At this rate, she wondered if they could truly solve the request.
"Then what should we do now?"
"It seems we should start by riding a sled."
Lee Mina wondered if she had heard wrong, her mind going blank. But when she came to her senses, they were already standing before a vast sheet of ice that looked like frozen water pooled in a deeply sunken basin.
"We were really going to ride a sled...?"
Seokjun went to a small building that looked like a management office nearby, paid, and returned with a sled that had a rope attached.
"Since we stayed behind claiming we wanted to enjoy the tourist spot, it wouldn't make sense not to actually enjoy it, would it?" They couldn't freely wander the village and investigate anything anyway. Right now, they were a couple who had discovered this place while stranded and decided to play for a while.
"Get on."
"Eek, me?"
She hesitated as he stepped onto the ice and set down the sled, but eventually sat on it.
-Ssssssssh
As soon as Seokjun began pulling the rope, the sled's blades scraped against the ice and started moving forward. The ice wasn't perfectly flat, so it jolted slightly here and there, but the sensation of sliding over the frozen surface came through vividly even with the sled between them. It was somewhat novel, but beyond that, she didn't really find it fun.
'Back then, what was so great about this that it felt fun?' She seemed to remember enjoying riding sleds alone as a child, but now too much time had passed for her to understand her past self.
"It might actually be fortunate that this request was never going to end in just a week from the start."
"Huh?"
When she lifted her head at Seokjun's voice, she realized they had already reached the center of the ice sheet. Looking around, she could only see land rising like embankments far in the distance. At this distance, even if someone wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation, they wouldn't be able to.
"Mina, what length of time do you usually think cases like this take?"
He held the sled's rope and walked in wide circles around the center of the ice as he spoke.
"Hmm, I'm not sure. I've never handled anything like this before." The work Lee Mina had done originally was far removed from something like this. Even thinking carefully while feeling the sled move, she couldn't get a sense of it.
"Short ones take half a year. Long ones can stretch to three or four years." In many cases, they ended up remaining unsolved.
"Wait a minute. Then this request was impossible from the beginning?!"
"It's not impossible."
Was there some method to shorten such an excessively long timeframe?
"The core of the request we received isn't solving the case itself."
"But the request document we got from the detective clearly said 'Investigation of the village where an entire family went missing.'"
Only then did Lee Mina realize how vague the words "simple investigation" truly were. They would indeed be investigating the village, but what exactly were they supposed to investigate?
"Do you remember what I told you before we came here?"
Lee Mina recalled the very first thing he had said when they were at the resort.
That was it. What he had said afterward was that it would be fine to withdraw from the request even now since no one would blame them. But—
"I remember."
It was true that she had hesitated a little when she first heard those words. But just as she had ended up coming here, Lee Mina had ultimately accepted the request. After all, that kind of resolve wasn't so different from what she had decided when she chose to become a hunter.
"The important thing is our identity."
"Our identity... you mean as stranded ski resort visitors?"
"Yes."
Since they hadn't contacted anyone yet, they were still essentially in the same situation as people who had been stranded. And that would look the same to the villagers.
"And stranded visitors wouldn't want to stay in the village for more than two days at most, no matter what." On the contrary, staying longer would look even more suspicious, so the actual timeframe hadn't changed.
"Still, isn't two days too short to find anything out?"
"It doesn't matter even if we don't find any particular evidence." What matters is what happens to us during that time.
Lee Mina mulled over his words, trying to grasp their meaning, but she still found it hard to understand, so she let out a sigh.
"Hoo... Really. It seems I have no talent for this kind of thing."
"Why do you think that?"
"Well, wasn't my acting really awkward?"
Even when she tried to act like lovers with Seokjun, her heart kept pounding wildly on its own, making her mess up. It was fortunate the man hadn't found it suspicious, or she might have ruined everything.
As Lee Mina grew gloomy, his voice reached her.
"I thought it was good, though."
"What?!"
That was so unexpected that she looked up in surprise, only to find Seokjun staring at her with puzzled eyes.
"It's acting as lovers anyway. Wasn't that level enough?"
"Ah."
Lee Mina soon realized it. All the actions she had taken toward him so far—whether intentional or not—had been of the same kind. No, rather, because it was acting, she might have been even more proactive. The moment that thought hit her, she buried her face in her knees.
"Um, perhaps—"
"Please don't say anything!"
Because of that, she didn't notice. While they circled the center of the ice sheet talking, a shadow lingered on the embankment above, watching them.
"This place was originally just a normal countryside village, right?"
Before long, they had stopped riding the sled and were sitting at the outdoor terrace of a convenience store. She thought it was surprising that there was even a convenience store here, but the cheap coffee tasted just as bitter as anywhere else. Even though the bone-chilling cold was still raging, the sunlight was blazing brightly, to the point that not being under the parasol made her skin sting.
"It probably was, before the weather turned like this. The place with the ice sheet we went up on seems to have been a small rice paddy."
"I saw an ice fishing spot over there too?"
"If Ice Bear had seen it, he would've gone crazy."
"R-really?"
Lee Mina momentarily recalled the armored figure diving into the water to catch mudfish and thought it was fortunate she had come instead. She couldn't even imagine what kind of antics he would have pulled.
"By the way, those names like Ice Bear or Grizzly... are they nicknames?"
From the way they called each other, it seemed like they used those nicknames. Seeing how they had even gone to the trouble of making separate business cards, it looked like they were quite attached to them.
"Yeeun got hooked on some manga and started calling us that at some point. It's reasonably usable, so we're just using them in place of code names."
"Pfft, so that's how you became Bear Cub!"
The thought that he got along with children better than expected made her laugh. Then suddenly, he picked up his smartphone and seemed to open some app.
"Mina. What year is it now?"
Lee Mina was flustered by his abrupt question but answered anyway.
"It's 2027."
He moved his smartphone left and right several more times, checking something.
"Is there some problem?"
Worried it might be related to this job, she asked cautiously, but he shook his head.
"It's a personal matter, so it's difficult to explain."
At his firm tone that came right after, Lee Mina grew flustered. The atmosphere had seemed good just moments ago, but it had suddenly changed. Wondering if she had asked something wrong, she retraced their recent conversation but couldn't find any issue. In the end, as Lee Mina watched him with a puzzled expression, unable to grasp what was happening—
"Snow?"
Beyond Seokjun, she could see snowflakes falling one by one, like salt being gently sprinkled from the edge of the parasol.
"Snow, huh. It seems to snow often here."
He only gave it a quick glance before speaking as if it were someone else's business. Watching him, Lee Mina somehow felt they shouldn't just stay like this. She had already finished the snacks bought from the convenience store—avoiding food touched by someone else's hands was better, after all—and was only drinking the bitter cheap coffee.
"Instead of just sitting here, let's have a snowball fight! There's snow everywhere!"
Since they had to stay faithful to their acting anyway, no one would complain if they played while they were at it. With that, she grabbed Seokjun's hand and pulled him up.
"Hah."
"Oh my."
Then a snowball hit him square in the face, and as he let out a dry laugh, she wondered if she had poked the wrong person. But afterward, they played throwing snow without even noticing time passing. Mostly her throwing, though.
"You're merciless."
"Ugh, you dodge better than I thought. Okay, fine, I'll get serious."
The snowball fight finally ended around dusk, when the snow covering the entire village had taken on the colors of sunset. The sun was changing its clothes for the evening.
"But none of the ones I threw even hit you properly, while all of yours hit me!"
"Even so, I couldn't just take a whole avalanche with my bare body, could I?"
It was true that compared to the amount Lee Mina had thrown, the snowballs he threw were only a few. But every single one flew at timings she couldn't avoid and struck only her legs, so it was inevitable that her competitive spirit would flare up.
Grumbling as they talked, they reached the village entrance and called the taxi company just to check.
[Can't go today.]
It was the answer she had already expected after seeing the heavy snowfall, but this gave them a legitimate reason to continue staying in the village. The villagers would have seen them completely absorbed in their snowball fight instead of leaving early, so there was no problem.
And when they looked around the inns to find a place to stay—
"Huh? You're still here?"
"Ahaha. Well, we got distracted while playing..."
"I was wondering how your boyfriend survived."
"Ugh."
It seemed they had gone a bit overboard after all. Anyway, they continued circling the village inns looking for a place to stay, but they couldn't find a single business that was open. Even though it was getting late, it wasn't so late that they couldn't take guests.
As they wandered aimlessly through the darkening streets, a man approached them from afar.
"Hey! You're not even going to the inn. What are you doing?"
It was the same man who had let them stay on their first night. At that moment, Seokjun and Lee Mina met each other's eyes.
'Suspicious, right?'
'Very suspicious.'
They didn't need words to know their thoughts matched perfectly. There was definitely something in this village.