The Story of the Snow Woman
It was the fourth day of life in Eskyle Village.
Even Eskyle had its own version of the weekend. Once a week, the teachers were allowed to shed their duties for a day and rest.
Of course, none of that applied to Simon.
"Hup-cha!"
Crunch!
The moment Simon, sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, let out a battle cry, the rotten tree root buried deep in the ground tore free from the earth.
The adults watching burst into exclamations of admiration.
"Teacher Sean has some real strength on him!"
"Priests really are something else!"
Simon collapsed onto the ground with a groan of agony. Rocks and rotten wood he'd uprooted like this lay scattered all around him.
I'm... dying.
His forearms were screaming and his lower back throbbed with every movement. He was wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead with a towel when the farmer he'd grown friendly with over the past few days held out a bowl of cold water.
"Drink, drink."
"Thank you!"
"You're truly remarkable! A job that would take fifteen days, done in one—all by yourself!"
"I did a lot of this back home, too."
The moment Simon took the bowl, it went straight to his mouth.
His Adam's apple bobbed furiously as he gulped. Water trickled down his chin, but he couldn't be bothered with such trifles right now.
"An honest young man. Rare thing to see these days."
"Leave the cleanup to us!"
The other adults moved off to clear away the debris.
"Much obliged, truly."
The farmer said this as he perched himself roughly on a tree stump.
"Playing teacher to the little ones is hard enough as it is, and here you are volunteering for dirty work like this on top of it."
"I'm a member of the village for the time being, after all. It's only right I help out."
"Hahaha! You certainly know how to charm us older folk, don't you?"
Of course, Simon hadn't thrown himself into grueling labor out of the goodness of his heart. There was a reason: information gathering.
As he drank the cold water, Simon was waiting for the right moment to ask his questions.
...Then again, I really can't get used to this.
In stark contrast to the sweat-drenched field around him, a blizzard was still raging furiously beyond the transparent barrier.
It was a remarkably well-made barrier, he had to admit.
"Sir?"
"Hmm?"
"I've been staying in the village a while now, and something's been nagging at me."
"Oh! Is that so? What is it? I'll explain anything you like!"
This whole exhausting four days had been spent cultivating exactly this kind of enthusiastic cooperation.
Simon raised an arm and pointed beyond the barrier.
"That extreme cold out there."
"Mm!"
"It's been getting worse and worse—now it's spread all the way down to Kula, the village below. Do you happen to know why it's turned out like this?"
"......"
The farmer, who had been wearing a relaxed smile, stiffened slightly.
"Why do you ask about that?"
Oops.
Had that been too sensitive a question, before he'd fully earned the man's trust? The back of Simon's neck went cold with sweat, but he recovered quickly with a cover story.
"N-no, it's nothing like that! It's just, once the cold snap ends, we'd want to expand the barrier little by little to clear the frozen ground, right? I was wondering why this chill is dragging on so long."
"......"
The farmer closed his eyes for a moment before speaking.
"It's because the Snow Woman awoke."
There it was again.
That entity—the Snow Woman.
"This... Snow Woman? Does she really exist? Sorry if that's an rude question."
"Ah, I understand. It's a hard story for an outsider to believe. Truth is, I was an outsider myself once."
He explained how, as a young man, he'd fallen head over heels for a woman of the Mizzenaci clan visiting the city and followed her all the way here.
"And then my wife, you see—!"
It was a stranger's family history that Simon had no idea why he was hearing, but he nodded along vigorously, playing the attentive audience.
"...and that's how we ended up here! Anyway, to answer your question—yes. The Snow Woman absolutely exists! Live in this village long enough, and you simply can't not believe it."
"What do you..."
According to the farmer, the village held a grand ceremony honoring the Snow Woman once a year.
They would lay out a feast in the village hall, close every door and window, and leave only the back door open in wait.
"And a short while later! You hear footsteps behind the door, then the sound of something gobbling down the food, bit by bit!"
At the farmer's vivid account, Simon swallowed hard.
"Then once the food's all gone, the footsteps start fading into the distance! I couldn't believe it, so I snuck over and cracked open a window—and would you look at that!"
The farmer wiggled his fingers with a grim smile.
"A woman in white mourning clothes, gray hair wild and unkempt, her eyes and lips red as blood—running off on bare feet! And then, right at the end, she turns and looks straight at me! The shivers ran through my whole body from head to toe... Yes. That was something no human being could ever be!"
The description matched the mysterious woman Simon had seen perfectly, down to her face and clothes. His shoulders gave a faint shiver.
"Heh heh! Should we stop if it's scaring you?"
"N-not at all!"
Necromancer was his actual profession—he couldn't exactly admit to being afraid of ghost stories.
"And it's not like it's happened just once or twice! Sometimes, you see, the cold snaps hit hard for months at a stretch. But on the day the Mizzenaci offer their sacrifice to the Snow Woman? Only on that day, the sky clears up bright and beautiful. Strange, isn't it?"
Simon leaned his head forward.
"What exactly is this 'sacrifice' offered to the Snow Woman?"
At that question, the farmer jolted in alarm, clapped a hand over his mouth in sheer panic, and then glanced frantically around.
"Ah! Haha! Did I just say 'sacrifice'?"
"Yes. That's exactly what you said."
"Th-that must have been a slip of the tongue! Haha! Now then, shall we get back to w-work? Hup-cha!"
Simon stared blankly at the man's back as he trembled violently, darting his eyes around like a madman.
"Teacher Rea! Teacher!"
"Hurry, hurry!"
This was their precious weekend—the single day of rest they got each week—and yet here the children were, flocking to Lethe's house yet again.
And here I thought I'd finally get some rest. They come even on holidays.
Lethe was weeping on the inside.
The three children had surrounded her on the bed, begging her to read them a fairy tale.
Kids! Teachers are people too!
She wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs, but Lethe was a professional. She put on a bright smile and said,
"Shall we step into the world of the story, then?"
"Yeees~"
"This is exciting!"
Lethe opened the well-worn storybook. It had clearly been read and reread countless times—the thing was falling apart at the seams, its pages hanging by a thread and threatening to tear loose at any moment.
It seemed to be a book the children treasured, so Lethe turned the pages with great care.
"Long, long ago, there lived a beautiful girl."
Her gentle, honeyed voice filled the room. The children lay there with faces utterly at ease, absorbed in the tale.
"The girl was born on a snow-covered mountain. But the mountain was far too cold, so the girl and her people came down to the warm lands of the south. There they built homes and tilled the fields, and lived happily together."
Lethe carefully turned a page that was a third of the way torn out.
"Then one day, the girl discovered sailors washed ashore on the beach, survivors of a shipwreck! The girl brought them to the village and nursed them back to health with the utmost care."
"Ah! Thankfully, the sailors woke up. They were adventurers! These strong, capable adventurers built houses for the girl and her people. And they taught them how to farm well, and how to make fire with ease. The villagers and the adventurers spent many happy days together."
Lethe smiled as she turned the page.
It was an ordinary story, but it had a wholesome charm. The children seemed to be enjoying it too, squirming happily beneath the blankets.
"Then one day, parting came to visit. The adventurers had repaired their ship, and now they had to return to their kingdom. They comforted the weeping girl and boarded their vessel. And waving, they made a promise—that someday, without fail, they would return to this place."
Sniffle!
Sniff...
Here and there, the sound of children sniffling back tears rose up.
The innocence of childhood really is a beautiful thing, Lethe thought as she turned to the next page.
"A long time passed after the adventurers left. The girl sat on the beach every day, waiting for them. But lo and behold! The adventurers truly did return! And they brought a great many people with them. The wide sea was filled to the horizon with their ships!"
"The adventurers pleaded with the girl and the villagers. Our kingdom is being ravaged by bandits. Please, let us live here. The villagers gladly welcomed the people of the kingdom."
Rustle.
The moment Lethe turned the next page, she faltered.
The illustrations in the storybook had changed—into something far too frightening for children. And the words beneath them had shifted to a cramped, forceful script, as though written by a different hand entirely.
"The adventurers and the people of the kingdom said: just as we built you houses before, this time we will build you a grand city."
"They burned down the forest where the animal friends lived to make roads. They tore up the glistening sands to build a harbor. And they cut down the sacred guardian tree the villagers cherished, turning it into furniture."
"No!"
"Stop it!"
The children's protests rang out.
"The girl and the villagers begged them to stop, but the adventurers and the kingdom's people only said: trust us. If you believe in us and wait, this will become a finer village still."
"More and more of the kingdom's people kept arriving from the sea. And when there were too many of them, the kingdom's people began dividing up the land. This is my land, that is your land. The girl and the villagers were bewildered. Nature belongs to all of us, they said. It cannot be owned by anyone. But the adventurers and the kingdom's people would not listen. And so, when morning came the next day..."
Flip.
Lethe's voice sank low.
"There was no land left for the girl and her people to live on."
The children burst into tears. One of them, seething with anger, pounded the bed with tiny fists.
"Driven out of the village, the girl and her people returned once more to the frozen mountain. There, they all made a vow. Someday, they would drive out the adventurers and the kingdom's people, and descend again to those warm lands."
"But the betrayal of the adventurers and the kingdom's people had struck the girl down, leaving her weak and withering. She could not finish climbing the mountain, and there she froze to death. The villagers, swearing fury and revenge, buried her in the snow."
Lethe's trembling hand turned at last to the final page.
'!'
The moment she saw the final illustration, she nearly cried out.
Light-faded gray hair. Eyes red as blood. A face twisted with hatred and rage.
It was so real she almost doubted it could truly be a drawing.
Beneath that picture, the story on the last page consisted of a single line.
"And the girl rose again."
Evening fell, and Simon and Lethe reunited at their lodgings.
The children had all been called home by their parents.
"Did you learn anything?"
Lethe snapped her fingers, activating a soundproofing ward, and asked.
"Yeah. Quite a lot, actually."
"Same here. Let's start by sharing what we've got."
Simon told her about the farmer's stories of the Snow Woman and the sacrifice, along with the various bits of information he'd picked up along the way.
Lethe shared the contents of the fairy tale she'd read with the children, and everything she'd learned from chatting with Petria before leaving her.
"Well then, the picture's coming together nicely."
Lethe said, gazing out the window.
"You've got a feeling about it?"
"Yes."
Lethe nodded gravely.
"Starting now, let's dig out the truth about this sinister village."