Chapter 166: The Mischievous Zakaril (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 166: The Mischievous Zakaril (1)
Somewhere in the permafrost of Eisengar.
An uncharted territory, undiscovered for hundreds of years.
But upon arriving near the kingdom with all its treasures in one’s possession, it would glow, revealing its location and granting entry only to the chosen.
Beyond the mirage-like realm, the snowstorm ceased as if it had never been.
What appeared was a beautiful kingdom straight out of a fairy tale. The Winter Kingdom, buried in history along with the snow, and Azyeth's home.
The party had arrived in the Frisian Kingdom.
The two of them took in the sights of the kingdom as they looked around the streets. Time seemed to have stopped; the houses, the objects, all of it was frozen, preserved exactly as it had been in the past.
“I’ve traveled through countless cities, but I’ve never seen a place like this.”
Aesthetically, it was more peaceful and beautiful than any other city, but an unsettling atmosphere that was difficult to describe flowed through it.
The reason was that nowhere in this massive city could a single person be seen. In the places where people should have been, there were only blunt pillars of ice.
Though they varied in size and fine detail, their overall forms were all similar.
Azyeth’s head moved without rest, her eyes scanning the city. Though not overtly obvious, her gaze was a mixture of confusion and bewilderment.
“No one’s… here.”
“Too much time has passed.”
After hundreds of years, things were bound to erode.
Both body and soul.
Even if they were frozen.
Unless they had received special care, like Azyeth.
“Do you remember anything?”
Azyeth shook her head.
“Let’s go further in.”
The two ventured deeper into the city.
Passing through the city streets, they entered the royal palace.
The first thing to greet them was a garden.
The garden, too, was frozen solid.
Azyeth didn’t just pass by. She changed her course and began to wander through the garden as if possessed.
A garden filled with a variety of flowers.
Azyeth walked around, examining each and every flower.
“Does anything come to mind?”
I don’t know.
As always, two contradictory feelings—unfamiliar yet familiar, feelings that shouldn’t coexist—seeped into her through the flowers.
The ice flowers were identical to the rose Azyeth had once frozen. They were beautiful to look at, but they had no fragrance, no life. The moment she lifted one by hand, its stem crumbled powerlessly.
Clang!
The petal that fell to the ground shattered into pieces with a loud noise. All that remained in her hand was a sense of emptiness.
They entered the castle.
A chilly corridor.
An ice chandelier.
Ice decorations.
A meaningless lump of ice.
And another lump of ice.
And another.
When she opened the helmet of a frozen knight, there was another lump of ice inside.
Azyeth flinched.
Looking at it all made her feel suffocated.
Her pace quickened for no reason.
As if trying to pass through it all even a little bit faster.
They looked into every single room.
Some rooms were decorated in a charming, cute style, while others held a concentrated, musty smell that hadn't faded even after hundreds of years.
And then, a certain room.
It was more luxurious than the others.
Azyeth stopped in front of a set of picture frames.
It was a family portrait.
A couple sat side by side.
Between them was a small baby.
The couple was smiling brightly, but the baby was expressionless.
The picture next to it.
The baby had grown.
She was sitting on a sofa with a woman who looked just like her.
The child was still expressionless.
Next to that.
The child had become a proper young woman.
She was still expression-less.
“That must be the princess of the Frisian Kingdom with the king and queen. I suppose this was the princess’s room.”
This was Snow White’s room.
“Do you remember anything?”
“…”
For Azyeth, memory was a faint existence, a floating illusion just out of reach.
It was obscured as if by a fog.
A memory that would scatter and vanish like a mere dream the moment she tried to reach for it.
The voice that seemed on the verge of surfacing never did.
But now.
The illusion began to take on substance.
It was as if things that had been hidden for so long were reaching out to her. As she took their hands, forgotten memories rose to the surface in fragments.
What was forgotten had not disappeared.
The memories were still inside her, merely waiting for the right time.
A time when they could reveal themselves without being erased by the curse.
Azyeth, who had been staring blankly at the painting.
“…Yes.”
Her trembling lips parted as she whispered faintly.
I remember.
Every single thing.
The gentle smiles, the warm touches, and the kind voices that lingered in her ears.
And everything about the tragedy that had befallen the kingdom.
The moment she realized it, Azyeth bolted from the room.
“Hah, hah…”
For some reason, her breathing was ragged.
Even though she hadn't moved that strenuously.
It was because the ‘lumps of ice’ that were everywhere in the kingdom came to mind.
The place Azyeth arrived at was the Great Hall, the last of her memories.
The hall was in a particular state of chaos.
The ceiling was shattered as if it had been bombed.
Objects were in pieces, and it was hard to find anything intact.
Among them, Azyeth stopped in front of two lumps of ice. They were shaped as if they had been crouching, arms outstretched to embrace something.
Pointed shards of ice jutted from their heads like horns, which at a glance, almost looked like crowns.
Azyeth knew them.
Even though their forms were crushed beyond recognition.
Those lumps of ice were the king and queen, stolen from Snow White by her stepmother.
*
In the princess’s room, decorated with snow and ice.
The room’s owner, Azyeth, sat on the bed, hugging her knees. Clearly in shock, her gaze wandered through the empty air, and she didn’t move an inch.
It was only natural.
Her frozen people.
The flow of time had ravaged their bodies and souls.
Those things were no longer frozen people. They were nothing more than insignificant lumps of ice. The king and queen were no different.
Reunion had brought with it an eternal farewell.
It was a harsh reality where it wouldn’t have been strange for her to collapse and wail, but Azyeth was only moderately shocked.
It was because Azyeth, who had only just begun to learn emotions, did not have a high enough capacity to accept such intense feelings.
In a way, one could call it a relief.
I decided to give Azyeth some space to be alone. She must be confused by the flood of memories and emotions, and I judged she would need time to sort through them.
I had nothing better to do, anyway.
While I waited, I wandered through the royal palace.
My steps were not without purpose.
A castle of an entire kingdom was bound to be filled with priceless treasures. Lazurite, something similar to the chalice, or maybe even a treasure better than that?
‘This isn’t theft.’
Azyeth, the sole survivor and only royal of the Frisian Kingdom, is my slave, and I am her master. Naturally, the kingdom’s belongings could be considered mine.
I’m just looking over my own things.
And that would lead to an investment in Azyeth.
‘I wonder what’s here.’
First, the library.
The value of a library from this era was on a whole different level from a modern one.
Rare grimoires, history books…
Finding just one of anything would be a huge jackpot.
As expected of a royal library, the shelves were packed with countless books. I couldn’t help but break into a wide grin, but unfortunately, it didn’t last long.
‘The books are all frozen?’
Frozen solid, down to every single page.
When I tried to open a book, it shattered with a crack.
There was no point in thawing them.
The moment they thawed, water would seep in and the ink would run.
All the books here were trash.
“Tch.”
I tossed a book aside carelessly.
Instead of a thud, the book shattered with a crash.
I clicked my tongue and left the library.
It’s fine.
The really expensive stuff is kept separately.
I purchased an item.
[Dungeon Map]
This is a dungeon map.
It cost 500 points.
It was the same map I used when exploring dungeons with Mirabelle.
One might wonder why I’d need a dungeon map in a castle, but the Frisian Kingdom was strictly treated as a dungeon.
No monsters appeared, but it was a secret kingdom that required special conditions to enter. A so-called hidden dungeon.
Items don’t lie.
The castle’s structure began to appear on the map.
Tapping the arrow on the map even showed the other floors. It was truly a magic map.
My destination was, of course, the basement.
There’s no better place to store treasure than a basement.
With the map’s help, I found the secret door leading to the underground.
Lighting a torch, I felt my way along the wall and descended the narrow basement stairs.
Is this what a tomb raider invading a pyramid feels like?
Thrill, anxiety, fun.
This is incredibly exciting.
El Dorado, filled with countless treasures, awaits me!
“Hm?”
After descending for quite some time, the treasury appeared.
But something was strange.
‘The door is broken?’
The massive, arched door was shattered to pieces.
It had been hundreds of years, so it wouldn’t be strange for it to have collapsed. But everything else was intact, so why was only the treasury door broken?
‘Could it be the Crystal Serpent?’
The serpent that swallowed treasure.
Before that, its role was to guard the treasury from intruders.
Perhaps it broke the door while escaping with the dangerous chalice when the kingdom fell. That seemed like the most logical guess.
Well, thanks to that, I could get in easily.
Breaking through a locked door would have been a pain.
With a light step, I entered the treasury.
Just as I expected, it glittered with countless gold, silver, and jewels. The treasures, too, couldn't escape Skadia's influence and were all frozen, but that was fine.
I just had to thaw them.
They wouldn’t be damaged like the books.
‘Moving this much is going to be a chore.’
But letting outsiders in to run rampant felt sketchy. I decided to just grab a few of the most expensive-looking items for now and headed deeper inside.
The more valuable something is, the more securely it’s hidden.
“Sheesh. I thought this would be fun, but it’s not fun at all, is it? I wouldn’t have come if I’d known.”
Just then, I heard a voice from deeper within.
The clear syllables were not those of a monster.
‘An outsider? No, was there a survivor?’
The voice was that of a child.
It was androgynous, so I couldn’t tell the gender, but I was certain of one thing.
It was an incredibly mischievous voice.
Atop the piles of treasure.
A small figure was flitting about.
A person. But the large, black wings on its back told me it wasn’t an ordinary human.
A race classified as demonic.
It was a demon.