Rendezvous in the Snowfields
With the Blessing of Cold secured as well, our business in the snowy mountains was perfectly complete.
Since Rene’s company had already been approved by Breeze, we could leave without any lingering regrets.
And so we descended the snowy mountains and safely reached the foothills.
Just as I was about to grasp the doorknob of the mountain cabin where Rewen and Lin were waiting—
The door burst open, and Lin came flying out to throw herself into my arms.
"I've been waiting for you, Master!"
"Oh...! You've worked hard. Waiting must have been tough, right?"
"No. Rewen thoughtfully asked me to teach him the sword, so even the waiting time was spent productively."
Rewen learning the sword?
I glanced sideways at Rewen.
He looked quite disheveled; it seemed Lin had put him through the wringer.
Even as a regressor, he couldn’t beat Lin who had reached the realm of a Sword Saint, huh.
Well, a five-year-old kid defeating a Sword Saint was an absurd story to begin with.
"So how were the results?"
"Setting aside familial affection and speaking honestly, he doesn’t have talent. Still, for some reason, Rewen’s sword carried a profound sense of seasoned skill. Whether that counts as talent is a bit ambiguous."
Meaning she almost figured out he was a regressor.
When I glared at Rewen, he deliberately turned his head and started whistling.
It was sloppy enough to make me wonder if he really was a regressor, but I could understand his feelings.
In all his previous regressions, he had never once had a proper conversation with Lin.
But in this cycle, he got the chance to cross swords with his sister, so he must have fought desperately just to earn her praise.
"You don’t want to be protected by us forever, do you? Take responsibility and teach him well."
"Yes, but Master......"
"What?"
"Why is it that I sense residual scents of someone other than Lady Rene on Master’s skin?"
"Ugh...!"
The arms of Lin who was hugging me tightened.
A silent pressure that she wouldn’t let go until I answered.
Lin’s smile, eyes closed and forming a gentle arc, was extremely terrifying.
I even thought it would be better if she just got angry and yelled.
But since Lin had never once raised her voice at me, this was how she expressed her dissatisfaction.
"I clearly coated Master’s body with my scent before you went up the snowy mountain."
"About that......"
If it was already found out, better to take the beating quickly, right?
I told her that after enjoying a mother-daughter feast in the dragon’s nest, I left a five-star review.
After hearing my entire story, Lin smiled sweetly and said thank you for being honest.
Just when I thought it would pass quietly—
"Sis, I’m going to go play outside with Rene for a bit!"
Suddenly Rewen took Rene and went outside the cabin.
At the same time, the mana in the air began to change rapidly.
The calmly flowing mana started rampaging as if influenced by something.
The cause was clear if I just looked down a little.
"Master, since you’ve had the main course, shouldn’t you also have dessert?"
Lin’s eyes, which were always closed, slowly opened.
Pupils as white as pure snow.
Those beautiful eyes were reflecting my face.
At the same time, Lin seductively licked her lips and removed one layer of her upper clothing.
"I trust you won’t say you won’t eat it."
"Oh......"
A midnight snack, huh.
Having unavoidably stayed one night at the mountain cabin, we headed northwest.
To go to the village of the snowmen and snow women in the northwest.
Geographically, there was even a dwarf village not far away, so there seemed no need to turn back.
My goal was the defeat of the Fire Dragon Ignite.
I would consult with the snowman tribe who harbored a grudge against Ignite and devise a plan.
After that, I planned to visit the dwarf village and commission the production of items needed for the operation.
The fight with Ignite is no different from a war.
[Wars always start over the most trivial of things.]
But it’s not trivial to me at all...
That damn lizard bastard had burned off one of Rene’s arms.
Thankfully we treated it quickly; if we had been any later, Rene would have lived the rest of her life with only one arm.
Whenever I recalled that incident, my blood boiled.
But everything has its proper order, so no matter how angry I was right now, I had to hold it in.
"Hoo...! We’ve been walking forever, yet there’s still no sign of them."
"Maybe we took a wrong turn?"
"No chance. We followed the ridgeline of the snowy mountains and came northwest."
We were definitely walking exactly as Gryupheid had instructed.
Unless the Spirit King’s information was wrong, I didn’t think we were heading somewhere else.
Had the snowmen and snow women relocated their village, and he simply given us outdated information without knowing?
Even that suspicion crossed my mind now.
"......Master, fortunately it doesn’t seem the information was wrong."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. Roughly three hundred meters ahead of our current position, I sense distorted mana. Someone has deliberately twisted the space."
The moment I heard the explanation, a certain magic came to mind.
Spatial Distortion.
A magic that twists space so that outsiders see an entirely different landscape.
"Is the range of the magic the entire village?"
It was a spell usable once one reached the 5th Class, but the range varied by rank.
5th Class covered only one’s own body, 6th Class a group of people, 7th Class an entire building.
Yet if the magic’s range encompassed an entire village......
I didn’t come here with high expectations, but it looks like there’s quite the big shot inside the village.
[It would be wise to prepare for the worst.]
That meant there was someone who had reached at least the 8th Class.
9th Class was practically legendary, so it had to be an 8th-Class Mage.
Even if not legendary, an 8th-Class Mage was a powerhouse who could hold their own against three Sword Masters.
A monster who could move mountains, freely soar through the sky, and part the sea for a brief moment.
That was the kind of being waiting beyond.
Hmm.
[What is it?]
Nothing much. I was just thinking about how impressive an 8th-Class Mage is, but even that is weaker than Breeze, whom I met not long ago.
[......If your comparison is a dragon, anything you compare will naturally feel insignificant, won’t it?]
That’s true, but...
The problem was that a being superior to an 8th-Class Mage had been swaying her hips above me and enjoying herself.
Just recalling the previous night made a hollow laugh escape me.
How should I put the world of Monopolizing the Strongest in the Academy?
Everything felt just a little off-kilter.
I hoped this village would feel less like that.
"Let’s head in for now."
I thrust my foot into the gap torn open in the distorted space.
Just as we were about to step into the hidden village—
"Halt!"
Crack—!
Icicles like spears of ice rained down right in front of us, forcing our steps to a stop.
I turned my head along the trajectory the icicles had flown.
My gaze stopped on the hill that led up into the mountains.
There stood women dressed in thin mourning robes embroidered with blue snowflake patterns.
"That place is not for outsiders like you to enter!"
"Leave at once!"
In weather where snow piled thick, walking around in thin robes was a sure way to be called crazy.
Yet the women strode confidently barefoot across the snow.
They had to be snow women, no question.
"We simply came because we have business in the village beyond!"
"Humans know of our village?"
"Has confidential information from within the village leaked into the human world without our knowledge...!"
I was about to say that wasn’t it, that the Spirit King Gryupheid had told us, when—
"In short, you lot are invaders, then?"
"We will deal with them here for the sake of the village!"
Without even hearing my circumstances, they suddenly leapt high into the air ahead of us.
Then they landed at a certain point and began sliding down at terrifying speed.
It was exactly like people riding snowboards.
Apparently the snowboards had been buried beneath the snow.
"Yee-haw!"
"We won’t let you off, invaders!"
"You’ve got to be kidding me."
Snow women arbitrarily deciding we were invaders and firing ice at us.
If I showed them the mark of Prihart on the back of my hand and exchanged a few words, the misunderstanding would clear up.
But they showed no intention of talking whatsoever.
Subduing them by force seemed to be the priority.
"I’ll go handle this."
"It’s fine. No need for you to step in."
"But...!"
"I’ve already taken care of it."
"Pardon?"
By becoming a follower of Prihart, I had transcended the limits of magic—limited to ice-element spells.
In other words, right now I was on the same level as an 8th-Class Mage.
At least atop this snowfield blanketed in white, I was the absolute ruler and sovereign.
"Frost."
⟨ Frost ⟩
A basic magic that merely created ice.
Yet when I used it, it possessed the power to realize the image in my mind as reality.
"Kyaaaah!!"
"Wh-what?!"
On the slope they were descending, I created a ski-jump ramp out of ice.
The ramp launched the snow women high into the air.
They flew higher than expected, but the landing zone was also piled thick with snow, so only the snowboards would take the impact and it would end there.
"B-Bern!"
Rene suddenly yanked on my collar and called my name.
She was pointing somewhere with a look of pure horror.
At the tip of Rene’s finger were the snow women flying through the sky—and their snowboards......
"Huh...?"
The shape of the snowboards the snow women had been riding was strange, every single one of them.
The boards that should have been smooth were covered in thick white fur, and the undersides had facial features almost like a human’s.
"......Those crazy bastards."
They were snowmen.