131. Blade Mountain Range
131. Blade Mountain Range
The place Amy arrived at after gathering her equipment from the dormitory and holding Atlas's hand to travel together was a pure white wasteland.
It was a terrible demonic realm filled with freezing snow and fierce, wildly raging blizzards.
The blizzard was so severe that it was hard just to keep her eyes open.
It was fortunate that the Anti-Demon Coat had a function to maintain her body temperature to some degree.
Atlas, who had brought her here, stood there impassively, surveying the situation.
"Uwaah?! Wh-Where is this??? Don't tell me it's the S-Snow Country??"
If it was a place where such a fierce blizzard raged, there was only one location that immediately came to Amy's mind.
"It's not the Snow Country. Just had some bad luck... Originally, this isn't a place where blizzards blow like this every day."
Atlas was just standing there without any preparation against the blizzard, but he didn't seem fazed at all.
"Here."
"Huh??"
He grabbed her hand again, the one she had been holding just moments ago.
"You can't see ahead properly. Let's hold hands and go."
"U-uh... okay...."
Even within the fierce blizzard, Atlas climbed the steep slope with long, purposeful strides, as if the storm was only a minor annoyance.
As they made their way for several minutes relying on Atlas's guiding hand, the blizzard gradually began to subside.
"It's letting up now."
"Wow...."
As he had said, it seemed they had genuinely just had bad luck and encountered foul weather.
As the sky cleared brightly, things that had been invisible until now came into view.
An incredibly deep blue sky, pure white clouds visible below their line of sight, and jagged rocks soaring mercilessly into the sky.
Amy and Atlas were climbing in the middle of an extremely high mountain range.
"This right here is a famous landmark of the Empire, the Blade Mountains, where it's said even magical beasts starve to death if they get lost. It's your first time here, right?"
It seemed they were in the middle of the Blade Mountains, known as the most treacherous range on the continent.
The mid-slopes of the Blade Mountains, which jutted sharply into the sky, are so rugged that it's said even magical beasts cannot survive. But why on earth would they come to a place like this?
"Yes... don't tell me the Demon Church's base is here...?"
"No, it's not that. It's a place I need to stop by first. It should be around here..."
Atlas drew his sword and strode along the snow-covered ridge of the Blade Mountains, stabbing the ground in every direction, before stopping at a certain point.
No matter how she looked at it, it was just a wall of rock jutting up.
Atlas stopped there and pounded on the rock wall with his fist, shouting, "Kwang! Kwang!"
"Hey, we've got a guest! Open the door!"
"W-Won't that cause an avalanche... if you do that here...?"
When Atlas pounded the rock mercilessly, the mountain, packed with snow, trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
Doing that in a place where a blizzard had been raging just moments ago meant she could see the piled-up snow starting to slowly slide down at any moment.
"Ah... Atlas!!! The snow!! The snow!! It's coming down!!!!!!"
Eventually, the snow accumulated above began to pour down.
As a massive wave of snow rushed down over their heads, she braced herself and clenched her teeth.
[Come in]
At that moment, a voice came from within the wall, and Atlas pulled Amy into the rock wall.
-Kung!!
The sound of a door slamming firmly shut echoed, and from beyond it came the sound of a massive amount of snow crashing down.
If they had been even a little later, they would have been swept away by the avalanche, their bodies never to be found.
"Heok... heok... I-I'm never doing that again...."
Amy trembled at the low sound of snow cascading down like a waterfall from behind them.
Had they been a fraction slower, they would have been swept away by that torrent of snow right now.
"Did you hear me? Open the door faster, what the hell are you doing!!"
While patting the trembling Amy's back, Atlas shouted into the interior of the cave.
Calming her startled heart with deep breaths, Amy looked around.
The cave, coiled within the Blade Mountains, was extremely gloomy.
The cave was dark, but a bright light illuminated by candles was visible deeper inside.
-Traces of sorcery are visible...
The further they went into the cave, the more the ornaments hanging on the walls caught her eye.
They were ornaments made from the bones of various beasts and magical creatures.
Walking through the dark cave past the ornaments and the sorcerous phrases carved into the stone walls was quite chilling.
Amy wondered how on earth Atlas knew about a place like this.
"Atlas... what on earth is this place...?"
"You'll know when we get there."
When they reached the end of the cave, a rather cozy lair appeared.
Though it was a flaw that it was heavily decorated with ornaments made of bones that looked human or animal,
there were oil lamps hanging here and there, plush animal pelts and colorful carpets laid comfortably on the floor, and furniture that looked handmade.
And at the end sat a person who appeared to be the master of this space.
She was an extremely haggard-looking woman wearing an exotic red robe intricately embroidered with complex patterns.
Even though her frame wasn't large, her cheeks were so sunken that they looked hollow and protruding, and dark shadows lay heavily over her eye sockets.
Though hidden by the thick robe, it was clear that she was so emaciated her bones were visible underneath.
Most of her hair was covered by a headband, but the one or two strands that had escaped were as stark white as an old person's.
Lying crookedly atop the pelts of various beasts and smoking a long pipe, she was the very image of a witch straight out of a fairy tale book.
"Wha... it's Atlas. How many years has it been? Who's next to you?"
"She's my friend."
"Heeheehee, that's the most unfitting thing you could possibly say."
The witch, who looked exceedingly old, treated Atlas with great familiarity.
-My goodness... Kirke, is it.... A fitting place to stop by before attacking the Demon Church, indeed....
And as if the Companion knew who she was, he couldn't hide his admiration.
'Who is it?'
-A Necromancer.
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Necromancers are talents who deal with departed souls and curses.
Since what they handle are things like curses, their public image is the worst, but it's more an uneasiness; they aren't actually persecuted by the Church or anything.
Due to the nature of dealing with curses, Necromancers are shunned by everyone, even without specific groups persecuting them.
The happiest places for them, locations filled with curses and vengeful spirits, are precisely the sites of accidents where people died miserably.
There aren't many places with the guts to accept Necromancers, who deliberately seek out places ordinary people avoid, saying just getting near them sends a chill down their spines, and who raise the peacefully departed to fight.
To the point that if a Necromancer is in a village, they are pointed out as the source of every incident.
True to their infamy, there are many Necromancers who actually commit inhumane acts, but even so, they are still talents who are a hundred, a thousand times better than demons.
No matter how wicked they may seem, a Necromancer's power belongs entirely to this world.
They are far better than the demons who are invaders from another dimension.
Wendy, the Necromancer hiding in the Blade Mountains, is a truly powerful Necromancer.
Seeing her completely unchanged from when I first met her to now gives me the feeling that time itself has stopped only in this place.
The first time I met Kirke was... right, when I was thrown out bare-handed and told to reach the highest peak of the Blade Mountains as part of training.
I know it's training that anyone from the Titan lineage goes through at least once.
But my father, who had done it fully grown and fully armed, threw a kid barely ten years old into the Blade Mountains without a single piece of equipment. Thinking back on it now, it seems he just wanted me to die.
Back then, I was full of poison and determination, so I gritted my teeth and climbed the Blade Mountains, and naturally, I got stranded midway.
I wasn't a Master back then like I am now, and before the mysteries of mother nature, a runt not even 150cm tall was utterly powerless.
And the one who saved me then was Kirke.
"Heehee, for you to come back here... your old man would be jumping mad if he knew."
"That old man's dead."
Hearing that her father was dead, Wendy laughed even more.
"Good... So you finally killed him?"
"As if I'd be that lucky. He just up and died on his own."
"Heehee... that's a real shame. You always said... you'd definitely kill your old man."
Kirke didn't speak highly of my father either.
The reason she was hiding in the Blade Mountains was that she had been defeated by the head of the Titan family long ago.
I also carry the Titan bloodline, but she doesn't dislike me.
Because she knew I was ostracized in the family.
"What a pity...."
That part is always a regret.
I should have been the one to kill him; it's galling that he just grabbed the back of his neck and collapsed.
"Atlas... your father passed away... I see."
"What father, more like my worst enemy."
"..."
Amy, who grew up in a good family, was about to say something but swallowed her words upon seeing me call him my worst enemy so resolutely.
"So... if you've come all the way to the middle of the Blade Mountains... it must mean you have a need that desperate, right? Heehee, I'm looking forward to what it could be."
"First... let me show you what I'll give as payment."
I tried to hand over the sword I had brought in advance, but Wendy smacked her lips while looking at something else entirely.
"Payment..? This child?"
"M-Me?"
Kirke looked at Amy and grinned.
It seemed she had mistaken Amy for the payment I was offering.
"Fufu, you carry something strange in your body, child. You seem to have many worries because of it... won't you join me?"
"Not a chance! Don't even dream of it."
I slapped away the hand reaching out towards Amy.