An Encounter in the Endless Snow
Vrooooom!!
The snowmobile, patched together like a rag quilt, tore through the swirling snow. Laden with cargo and riding heavy, it carved a long white scar across the pristine page of the plain for a while — until the fat flakes falling from the sky shyly buried the trail behind it.
A snowmobile racing across a field of snow. At a glance, it almost looked romantic. The kind of thing you might enjoy as a winter sport, even.
But when the snowy expanse stretched on without end and the scenery refused to change for days at a time, could anyone really still say that?
"Uuuuuaaaagh—"
"Please stay close to me."
"It's cold!"
The icy wind, growing fiercer in proportion to the snowmobile's speed, wormed its way into every corner of my body. I had wrapped myself in every scrap of cloth I could find, wound layer upon layer, but the cold that ached down to the bone showed no intention of letting go.
The only thing I could do right now was cling to Noah, who radiated a cozy warmth from her frame. And even that was only possible for a few hours a day.
Still, thank goodness Noah's the one driving. If I'd been alone, I'd have frozen to death not long after escaping the lab.
No, wait — come to think of it, if Noah hadn't existed at all, I probably would have wandered outside without ever knowing about the Spacetime Barrier and gotten hopelessly lost. If I'd been a coward and tried to survive alone, what kind of ending would I have met? The thought made my head spin.
Of course, my current situation wasn't exactly peachy either.
Grrrrrrooowl!!
"...What on earth is that?"
"I would prefer not to know."
A faint silhouette flickered past between the flurries of snow — the shape of a giant, easily two and a half meters tall or more. Some kind of Phantasm, by the looks of it. A yeti?
Vrrrmm—
"This is a problem, sir. If the snow keeps piling up, the snowmobile may stall. Our food is also beginning to run low."
"Damn it. I wish we could see something. The visibility's terrible with this blizzard—"
"On the bright side, it means we need not fight the Phantasms."
The snowy plain, where nothing but white met the eye, was hideously vast. Ten days now, moving at a few dozen kilometers an hour, and we hadn't found a single trace of human life.
Whooshhhh—!
Worse, the snowstorm that had picked up again two days ago reduced the world to pure whiteout. If only there were even a cave, we could have stopped to rest — but in a land of nothing but flat plains, that was too much to hope for.
And that wasn't the only problem, either...
"We are out of fuel."
"Oh, come on..."
The fuel we'd scavenged had finally hit bottom. My stomach dropped.
Did I set the wrong heading? Or... was leaving the lab a mistake after all?
No. Staying there would have brought nothing but a slow, creeping death, and I knew it. And with the risk of the underground collapsing, if I'd gone down below the lab to escape the cold, I might never have made it back up.
I did my best.
"Please don't lose heart. We still have plenty of food."
As if answering the excuse forming in my heart, Noah spoke in her flat, even tone and began gathering up our dwindling luggage, bundling it into a single load. Even the green juice was nearly gone now — maintaining body heat in this cold demanded far more calories than I'd expected. The candy we'd salvaged from the lab bought us a little extra time, at least.
"You can't very well turn back to the lab at this point, can you?"
"...I made peace with that partway through. The snowfield is so wide, we never could have come this far without the snowmobile. All we can do is keep heading in the same direction."
"We may be nearly at the end already. Let's hang in there just a little longer."
"Yeah."
It wasn't over yet. The calm back-and-forth with Noah steadied my heart again.
The situation is still serious, though...
Our remaining food and water amounted to barely two days' worth. Now that we'd have to move under our own power, we might burn through it even faster. If we didn't find something before then...
Which would come first — starving to death, or freezing to death?
"That is indeed the question."
"What is?"
"Nothing. Never mind. Let's get moving."
Crunch, crunch.
Noah, luggage secured, took the lead and pushed through the snow. I offered a brief word of thanks to the snowmobile that had carried us this far, then followed after her. Thank goodness I wasn't barefoot, at the very least.
...
Two full days had passed since we'd taken to travel on foot. In that time, we'd crossed paths with the Phantasms wandering the snowfield five times in all. Our plodding pace — incomparably slower than the snowmobile — made it impossible to shake them off.
"...I apologize. The treatment isn't taking properly. Something about this snowfield is wrong. When my aura is released outward, I cannot control it."
"It's fine. You're a little better, so moving isn't a problem."
The Phantasms of the snowfield came in all shapes and varieties. From white-skinned boars to snow-men that looked like yetis, and beyond them all manner of monstrous forms besides. Just as Noah said, controlling my aura here was difficult, so all I could manage was reinforcing my body with it — but somehow, we subdued every one of them with minimal wounds.
There was something else strange about them, too.
"They drop [Stones] but leave corpses behind. Are these things actually Phantasms?"
"Did the Points absorb correctly?"
"Yeah. I'm getting more than I did from ordinary goblins. Definitely [Stones]."
+60 Points
Sixty points — a full twenty more than before. These things were reasonably strong, so they paid out reasonably well.
"Well, the fact that they left corpses behind is how we got food, anyway."
"...I am not certain we should be eating this."
"The green juice is gone, so I don't exactly have the luxury of choice."
We built a fire inside a hastily-made igloo. If we stoked it too hot, the igloo would melt, so we kept it to just enough...
Try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to eat something shaped like a human — a yeti, after all — so we roasted the meat of the boar-like one instead. The taste was surprisingly decent.
"Not bad, actually."
"Hm, is that so? I have no sense of taste, so I couldn't say. It is soft, though."
"That's ri— wait, no! Why are you eating so naturally? You can eat food?"
I stared blankly at Noah, who was chewing meat beside me. I'd assumed a robot couldn't do something like this?
Oblivious to my shock or simply ignoring it, Noah grilled a mountain-sized heap of meat and gulped it down, swallow after swallow.
"I possess an organ that converts organic matter into energy. Highly inefficient, I might add."
"Huh..."
"One should conserve power wherever possible. Playing the role of a human furnace has drained my reserves dangerously low."
"...That's my fault, isn't it. Eat up, then."
The Phantasms were dangerous creatures, but at the same time, they were an excellent source of protein. After fending off a few more attacks, we actually had meat to spare — if anything, that had become the problem. All the surplus meat we couldn't carry was devoured by Noah and converted into energy.
"...Please do not stare at me like that."
"Sorry, I was just thinking you'd go viral if I filmed a mukbang of you."
"..."
Truth be told, Noah had no real need to cook the meat at all — toward the end, she simply swallowed it raw. Watching her polish off a hunk of meat larger than her own body in under ten minutes was, frankly, a marvel to behold.
...
A week passed. Thanks to the Phantasms' tireless contributions, our snowfield survival story had grown considerably more comfortable. At the very least, the worry over food was gone, and that alone made things bearable.
But it didn't put my mind at ease.
What do we do if nothing turns up at this rate...
We could hold out for now, sure — but a person can't live on meat alone. And with Noah's healing ability half-sealed for some unknown reason, if we ran into a strong Phantasm and took real injuries, our lives would be on the line. We were walking a tightrope, performing a delicate balancing act with death waiting on either side.
"If you're tired, I could carry you."
"...I'm fine for now. You need to save your power too."
Still, having someone to talk to was a small comfort. How much of a blessing it was, just to have another soul to speak with. If I'd been alone out here, I might well have died of depression.
"The snow has lifted somewhat, at least. It no longer falls with quite the same reckless abandon as before."
The blizzard that had raged so furiously you couldn't see a hand's length ahead had died down at some point. Now it was just a light powdering of snow. With visibility much improved, I scanned our surroundings on the off chance something might finally appear.
And as expected, there was nothing to be...
...Kyaaaah—!
Hm?
As I narrowed my eyes and peered this way and that, a faint scream drifted in from far away.
"Did you hear that?"
"No. Did you hear something, sir?"
"Was I imagining it?"
Even Noah denied it, so for a moment I wondered if I'd misheard. Then—
Aaaaargh—!
I concentrated my aura into my ears, sharpening my hearing, and caught the sound more clearly than before. It was unmistakably the scream of human beings. Several of them, no less.
Joy flooded through me.
"...People! I can hear screaming!"
"!"
"We go straight ahead! Clear a path for me!"
"Understood!"
Thud!
Thud!
Noah radiated intense heat from her frame and broke into a sprint. Snowdrifts scattered in every direction, unable to withstand the scorching heat and impact. I drew my sword, chased after her, and kept calling out our heading.
...
Grrrowl!
Bang!
Gunfire?
The sounds drew steadily closer. Along with them came the acrid stench of gunpowder on the wind, and a familiar bestial reek. I had a rough idea of what we were walking into.
Crack—!
Suddenly, the Noah in front of me dropped out of sight, vanishing downward. A downhill slope?
I didn't slow my pace — I just kept running and rode the natural slide down. Then, following the man-sized hole Noah had punched through first, I burst out into the open.
Whoosh—!
Hrrrrooonnk...
The moment we broke free of the snowbank, I took stock of the scene. The first thing to catch my eye were the boar-like Phantasms we'd been sick of seeing for days. The second was a crowd of some thirty young men and women, frozen in stunned disbelief at our sudden arrival.
People!
Real, actual people — with eyes, noses, mouths, arms and legs all properly attached! Normal human beings!
Grrrr—!
Oh, and there were some rather large dogs with them too. They looked like huskies of some kind; evidently the people had raised them, because the dogs were diligently guarding their owners. Growling at a stranger like me, of course, went without saying.
"Who— no, please, help us! We'll repay you, I swear!"
Oh, good instincts.
A young woman who seemed to be the leader of the huddled crowd called out to me for help. She had a few freckles scattered here and there, but overall she had the look of a lively, easygoing beauty. Not the type to stab you in the back, I judged.
Well, even if she did put on an act, I couldn't exactly complain.
The mere existence of other humans was already a tremendous gift to me. Good people would just be a bonus.
"Noah! Protect the people!"
"Yes, sir!"
There wasn't just one monster boar. The creatures had the makeshift campsite surrounded. Noah, a seasoned hand at boar hunting by now, had already cracked three skulls, but more than a dozen of the beasts were still baring their tusks.
Then again, a number like that was nothing compared to the ones we'd cut down on the way here.
"Let's finish this quickly. I don't feel like trading blows with you all day — I want to rest."
Sssring.
Was it the blood of so many of their kin soaked into the blade? The moment I drew out my sword — still pristine save for the fact that it had been cleaved in two and mended — the boars began slinking backward.
Run, you cowards. Run right along.
...
"Thank you so much! How can we ever repay you...!"
Once we'd cleared out every last monster and approached the crowd still staring at us in a daze, one of the women darted forward and bowed deeply at the waist. It was the same woman who'd been the first to collect herself after our sudden entrance.
Well-mannered, at least.