The Snow Woman's Gaze
Whiiiiiiine—!
Simon and Lethe clawed their way up the snow mountain, enduring a brutal, biting cold.
Wow, this is genuinely insane.
The chill burrowed into his collar, and the snot running from his nose froze solid halfway down. All he could see was an endless white slope stretching upward with no summit in sight. Every step sank deep into the snowfield, making walking itself an ordeal—and on top of that, the mountain monsters kept attacking. His stamina drained away fast.
Even Simon, raised in the mountain regions of Leshill, thought this was the most dangerous climb he'd ever attempted.
"Lethe! You okay?"
"Yes, doing fine, I am!"
Her sturdy answer drifted back from a short distance away. The ground around her was littered with the corpses of snow mountain monsters.
At this point, wasn't she less the Saintess of the Stars and more the Saintess of Blood?
Every path she took, the snowfield stained red. And yet her white robe and snow-white hair remained in pristine, immaculate condition.
"They really are persistent, chasing us like this."
Cheeks flushed pink, she cupped her hands together and blew a warm breath into them.
"Lethe, this cold is too brutal for climbing today."
Simon decided to finally bring up the words that had been hovering on his lips again and again.
"What if we retreat for now and come back later?"
"And when, exactly, is later?"
Her reaction was icy.
"This cold snap will last for months yet. Going back would just give us more excuses to dawdle. It has to be today! We climb like our lives depend on it—if we don't find Eskyle Village today, we freeze to death. Simple as that."
"...You're serious?"
"Yes, completely serious."
Simon marveled inwardly.
Simon's own extensive experience with mountain travel meant his fatigue was manageable, but for Lethe, who had lived her whole life on flat ground, it had to be several times harder. Even so, without a single word of complaint, she was silently carving through monsters and climbing on.
Fwububububuk!
The sound of her holy arrows blasting apart monster skulls rang out.
"At least the fighting keeps my body warm, so that's something."
She painted the surroundings red yet again as she approached, breath puffing white.
"The body-warming Blessing. Do you need another layer?"
Simon shook his head.
"I'm fine. I can do it on my own now."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Warmth.
A blessing-type white magic spell that blocked the chill and preserved body heat.
Simon had scrutinized the structure of the magic circle Lethe had cast for him at the start of the climb, and practiced in stolen moments as they pushed through the brutal cold. And at last—
⟨ Warmth ⟩
Fwaah!
He had succeeded in completing the Blessing with his own power. Lethe gave an awkward laugh.
"So that's what all that pointless fiddling was about......"
A necromancer using white magic. Even though it was happening right in front of her eyes, Lethe couldn't quite believe it.
Is this man really a necromancer?
—Then how about thinking of it this way? What if Simon isn't a necromancer at all, but something else entirely?
Come to think of it, that was what Ellen—the Efnel impersonator he'd briefly met on the Holy Train—had once said.
Something else entirely.
It was true, when he thought about it. This guy really was too much to call a mere necromancer......
"What are you thinking about so hard?"
At Simon's sudden question, Lethe startled and stumbled backward.
"Wha—! You scared me! Don't sneak up like that!"
"?"
She growled and glared at Simon, then snorted and looked away.
"Your very existence is blasphemy, you know that?"
"...Where did that come from?"
"Hold still a moment."
She stepped close and pulled open the front of Simon's coat. Simon flushed and shrank back, but she gripped his clothes tighter, holding him still with a glare that said don't move.
"You cast Warmth earlier, didn't you? Are you warm right now?"
"...Huh, now that you mention it."
He was cold.
Time had passed and the Warmth had decayed from triple-layer down to double, so he'd cast another himself to hold it at three—but somehow it didn't feel any warmer.
"Then let me take a look."
Lethe pointed at the magic circle inscribed on Simon's body.
Double-layered. Simon's Blessing had vanished somewhere, and only the effect of Lethe's remained.
"Why though? I definitely cast it properly."
"Which runes did you use?"
"Censarium, wasn't it?"
"And the modifiers? Did you account for White Code and Flat Note when you built it?"
"What are those?"
She let out a small sigh.
"To stack Blessings, each new one has to interlock precisely with the ones beneath it. You dark mages seem to deliberately twist your curse formulas into knots just to make them hard to unravel, but Blessings don't work that way."
She pressed her two palms together and placed them against Simon's chest.
Perhaps because Warmth was already active, her hands were warm too.
Soon she closed her eyes and murmured a quiet incantation.
Oh.
The existing double-layer of Warmth dissolved, and a fresh Warmth settled into place at three layers.
"It's an application of that principle."
Lethe withdrew her hands and smiled brightly.
"Warm now, aren't you?"
"......"
Just as Simon opened his mouth to thank her, Lethe spun on her heel.
"Once we reach the village, I'll teach you properly. La Escrime."
At those words, Simon snapped fully awake.
"R-really?"
"Once this mission is done, you'll be collecting your reward from Lady Israfil anyway, but you're still out here working for the Holy Federation's sake, aren't you? I can afford to show a little mercy."
Then, mid-sentence, her face twisted into an expression of pure indignation.
"Ugh! Honestly, since we're being blunt—your La Escrime from that night was terrible! My face burned just watching it! If you're going to use my original spell, at least do it right!"
Startled by the sudden shift in atmosphere, Simon retreated a step, laughing.
"I'll do it properly from now on."
"And don't go around telling people it's my white magic! It's embarrassing!"
Lethe turned sharply and strode off.
Takes care of me, does me a favor, then blows up at me. She really does whatever she wants.
And more than anything, Simon found it a little surprising that Lethe was willing to teach him white magic at all.
With her personality, he'd assumed she'd guard herself even harder against Kizen's Special Admission No. 1 out of sheer rivalry.
"Hurry up and follow! I'm freezing to death over here!"
"Ah—yeah! Coming!"
Whiiiiiiine!
Three hours had passed since then, and the bitter cold showed no sign of letting up.
Still not letting up? Even now? Even NOW?
That was what the cold seemed to be saying. Marveling at his own gift for communing with nature, Simon briefly wondered if he should have been a druid instead of a necromancer.
Wow, but seriously, I'm actually dying of cold here.
He'd stacked heat-preserving Blessings one after another, but his stamina and mental fortitude were reaching their limits.
Worse, the blizzard made it impossible to tell one stretch of white from another, so he couldn't even be sure he was heading forward at all. It felt like circling the same spot again and again.
Rustle.
Simon unfolded the rough map Israfil had given him. But it was woefully inadequate—blinding snow made it impossible to match any landmark to the terrain.
"Lethe. That thing you said about freezing to death if we don't find Eskyle Village. Still standing by it?"
"...Kgh!"
Red-faced, she bit her lip, then finally shouted.
"O-of course it is! We WILL find it!"
And with that she began stubbornly searching the area around them.
"Don't push yourself too hard."
After offering that gentle word, Simon started his own search.
Huh?
Then he sensed movement nearby.
Quietly, Simon drew his sword and walked forward.
Something was there.
Getting closer, he saw that someone was seated on the ground, digging through the snow.
"Huh? Who—"
The figure spotted Simon first. A man in his early thirties, wearing a fur coat.
"What the! You two! How did you get up here?!"
A person!!
Simon's face lit up.
"Are you, by any chance, a resident of Eskyle Village? We're—!"
"Are you two out of your minds?"
The man exploded at them.
"Climbing the mountain in a cold snap this brutal? What were you thinking! You could've been eaten by the Snow Woman!"
"...The Snow Woman?"
Come to think of it, he'd heard that name before—in Kula.
Legends of the Snow Woman.
"Snow Woman, Saintess, whatever—nobody's eaten us yet, so it all worked out, didn't it?"
Lethe approached with characteristic cynicism.
"You've heard the story, right? We've come as teachers for Eskyle. Kindly guide us to the village, if you would."
"Right, right. Follow me, quick!"
The man strode out ahead. Simon let out a huge inward sigh of relief, thinking they'd finally made it.
"Huh?"
But this man—
"E-excuse me?!"
He was astonishingly fast, despite trudging through snowfields. He didn't wait for the two of them, just kept marching onward alone.
Getting farther and farther away.
"W-wait, let's go together!"
And the unrelenting cold and blizzard kept swallowing his figure and spitting it back out, over and over.
Just as an anxious Simon moved to speed up—
"Hold on."
Lethe caught his shoulder.
"What is it? We'll lose him at this rate!"
"Something's wrong here."
Her eyes narrowed.
"His body was blurry."
"You're just imagining things because of the blizzard—"
The moment Simon spoke and took a step forward—
CRUMBLE!
The ground dropped out from under him.
"!!"
Whiiiiiiine!
When his senses returned, the edge of a cliff was right in front of his face. The drop was so deep the bottom was invisible, loose pebbles clattering down into the abyss.
"Ngh!"
Lethe's face was scrunched in a grimace as she clutched Simon's hand.
"See? I told you something was wrong!"
Gritting her teeth, she heaved with all her strength.
"I SAID something was off!!"
WHOOOOOSH!
Simon's world flipped upside down. His body spun through a full arc and flew, landing in a thick drift of snow.
"Haah. Haah."
Simon's eyes were still trembling, unwilling to believe what they'd seen.
And then.
He saw it.
There, in the snowfields of a mountain gripped by killing cold—a barefoot woman in a white dress, glaring at him with pupils red as blood.
As if disappointed.
Smacking her lips.
......!
Goosebumps erupted down his arms, every hair on his body standing on end.
Simon scrambled up to confirm what the figure was, but the woman had vanished along with the blizzard itself.
"Are you all right?"
Lethe hurried over.
"Lethe! Did you see that?"
"See what, exactly?"
"A woman in white clothes with red eyes!"
"......"
Lethe's expression hardened.
"I didn't see anything. Sounds like you're the one seeing things because of the blizzard this time."
"......"
Simon pressed a hand to his forehead. Too much had happened at once for him to gather his thoughts.
But there was no time to sit here wallowing.
"Let's go. This way."
"That direction? If you're chasing some other hallucination, I'm going to be very annoyed."
"Then you can rescue me again, like you just did."
"...Ha. You do live an easy life, don't you. Fine. I'll take point."
Simon led Lethe straight in the direction where the Snow Woman had appeared.
They pushed through the blizzard for about twenty minutes—
"There!"
Two stone pillars came into view.
"Found it! It's the village entrance from the map!"
Lethe finally let a smile cross her face, spreading her palms wide.
"Not bad at all!"
Smack!
The two shared a light high-five and stepped up to the stone pillars.
"Now, how does this work?"
The bodies of the two pillars held small hollows, sized for a hand, and inside each one two stones were stacked atop one another. Beneath them, an inscription was carved.
"People melt, and become people."
Simon propped his chin on his hand and sank deep into thought, while Lethe peered into the stone pillar and scowled.
"...I absolutely despise puzzle nonsense like this."
Simon, by contrast, threw himself into it. He checked the size of the pillars, studied the shape of the stacked stones, even handled the stones directly.
Smooth. Unusual material.
As he fiddled with them, the upper stone suddenly dropped with a soft tock.
Simon tried to restack it, but it slipped loose and fell again. No matter how many times he tried, the same thing happened.
How did anyone get this to stay up here? ...Oh!
As his eyes returned to the inscription, an idea flashed through his mind.
"Got it!"
"You solved it?"
"Yeah. It's easy."
Simon picked up the two stones inside the pillar. Lethe, catching on, did the same beside him.
"Pack snow around the stones. Like this—same as when you're making snowballs."
They formed two snowballs, pressed them together into a little snowman shape, and set the whole thing in the pillar's hollow.
"And what exactly is this supposed to accomplish?"
Lethe followed along dubiously.
And before long—
"It's melting!"
Whether the pillar held some magical mechanism or not, the snowman began melting at a speed that defied belief.
In almost exactly one minute, all the snow had melted away, leaving the two stones—head and body—snugly joined together.
Restored to the exact state they'd been in when first discovered.
Vuuuuuuuum!
Then, in the space between the two pillars, a vast magic circle unfurled, and the entrance to a barrier revealed itself.
"See that?"
Simon said, brimming with confidence.
"Hmph, well done. Turns out even a worm can wriggle."
Lethe strode right up and thrust her hand into the barrier. Simon flinched.
"Aren't you being a little too careless?"
"What's there to be afraid of? I'm the Saintess of the Stars, aren't I?"
She swirled her hand inside the barrier, pulled it out, then boldly stuck her whole head in and pulled it back out.
"It's safe. Let's go."
The two threw themselves into the barrier at the same moment.
And then—
"......!"
They stood frozen, mouths agape at the entirely different world unfolding before their eyes.