Chapter 114

The path down was truly terrible.

There might not be any carts coming behind him, but the carts that occasionally passed right above his head and beside him were terrifying.

He could hear the sound of air being torn right next to his ear.

It was like having a 5-ton truck pass just 4cm away from him.

Still, he thought he was going well enough, but halfway through, a path suddenly appeared that bent 80 degrees downward, and as he rode down...

He ended up falling.

Before even discussing whether he had crossed safely or not, it became a question of whether he could recover his body here.

Just before he could see something like ground below, he shut his eyes tight.

Even someone like him didn't have the confidence to keep his eyes open until the moment of death.

But then,

"Aaaaah!"

Instead of his whole body hitting hard ground, he felt a terrible pain in his right shoulder and wrist, which had landed first.

But it didn't end there.

His body, after hitting once, bounced and tumbled down several times.

During that time, unknown things clawed at his face and legs.

Only when his mercilessly rolling body stopped could he lift his head.

Tears that had been welling up flowed down from one eye.

As if his body wasn't already feeling shattered from rolling when he fell from the cart earlier!

What kind of luxurious life was he supposed to be living at this age!

"Damn it, my arm... Aaaaargh!"

The moment he touched his right arm while groaning, he screamed involuntarily.

A fracture. It must be at least a fracture.

It couldn't possibly be intact when it hurt this much!

As he barely managed to stand up while sniffling his nose in an unsightly manner, his limp right arm and right shoulder screamed in pain.

Because of that, he wanted to sit back down, but he barely endured.

Tears were flowing, his head was spinning, his whole body was in pain, and his arm was in even more pain.

Moreover, it was bitterly cold here.

The floor had no ice, but it was hard, completely frozen.

Since entering the mine, even with his cloak torn away, he had been able to endure reasonably well, perhaps because it blocked the wind blowing from outside.

But now it was so cold that even ten layers of cloaks would not be enough.

And up there, where he had just tumbled down from...

"...What is this?"

The faint light embedded in the pillars of the structure illuminated the surroundings.

He had thought the place he had just tumbled down from was a waste site or a garbage dump for the mine workers.

But his thought was wrong.

There were people lying in what had been a "garbage dump."

Strictly speaking, they weren't humans.

Something with a dog's face, goat's legs, and long, sharp nails couldn't possibly be human.

But if such things were piled up, over and over, forming a small hill.

If what had scratched him were protruding hands, and what had supported him were their bodies.

A mountain of corpses, frozen and emptily piled.

A stench that seemed to have been stagnant for thousands of years seeped out from them.

"Ugh."

As soon as he backed up a few steps, an intense urge to vomit surged up.

Why were these things here?

Were these the demonic beasts that had been crying in the tunnel?

But why were they all dead?

Could it be that Yurik had come here and...

The moment that thought occurred to him, he couldn't hold back and vomited everything inside him.

He vomited and vomited until nothing came out.

After coughing and spitting everything out, he sank to the ground, exhausted.

Cold, smelly, dizzy, painful, tough, he felt like he was going to lose his mind.

Even if he wanted to hug himself, it was impossible with his dangling arm.

In the end, as he was trying to steady his breathing to avoid falling into panic while sitting with his knees up, it happened.

[Have you seen me?]

A chilling voice was heard.

But there was nothing here.

Surprised, he exhaled, and his breath froze white and disappeared into the air.

"Who's there?"

[Have you seen me?]

"Who's there?"

[Look at me. Come up and look at me with your insignificant eyes.]

Come up?

He looked at the hill of corpses.

Though it was so vividly real that it was disgusting, he crawled up onto the frozen bodies as the voice guided.

[Look at me.]

It grew colder as he climbed.

No, rather than cold, it started to hurt now.

He could see white frost climbing up his bangs covering his forehead.

With just one hand, he barely made his way up the hill of corpses, but there was nothing there.

[Look at me.]

"There's nothing here."

[Look at me. An eternal flame shall blaze before you.]

Before?

He blinked once.

There was a frozen wall, and like the walls around this area, it was completely covered in white.

But... this wall was different.

The whitened wall was not rugged but smooth.

It was as if a well-crafted crystal or glass was disguised as a wall.

Beyond it, something was rippling.

A blue, pale, grayish, shimmering ripple.

Only after witnessing it did he realize that it wasn't actually a ripple.

A cold light.

A white, dimly blazing flame.

The form of the fist-sized, spherical flame was reflected from beyond the translucent wall, flickering all around.

The moment his eyes met it,

He felt an unpleasant sensation.

The feeling of some deep part of his humanity being forcibly invaded.

Yet, unable to turn his eyes away, as if forcibly held, he fixed his gaze, and the voice was heard again.

[You have seen me, but I have not reached. You understand... The coldness, the ice and frost, the flames of cold and silence.]

Flames of cold.

Just before he could ask what that meant, a northern fairy tale he had read in his previous life came to mind.

A white light that wouldn't fade even with the coming of summer.

The Lord of the Extreme Realm, Aphoom-Zhah.

So that god was beneath the mine.

The cold radiance seemed to pierce into his eyes.

['The Never-Extinguishing Flame.'

Once upon a time, there lived a lazy man in a village. He was so lazy that he liked to stay indoors.

The villagers, seeing his plight, occasionally helped him. But the lazy man accepted it as if it were his due, never even saying thank you, and always just loafing around.

Tired of this, the villagers decided not to help the lazy man anymore. But even when the food brought by his neighbors stopped, the lazy man remained just as lazy. He believed that his neighbors wouldn't turn their backs on him.

As time passed, a severe cold spell hit the north. The villagers could endure the harsh cold with the firewood and food they had diligently gathered, but the lazy man had nothing stored up.

When all the firewood was gone and he had no food left, the lazy man finally left his house. He went around begging his neighbors for food or fire, but they coldly turned him away.

-You always took our food and firewood without giving anything back. Now we don't even have enough for our families!

The lazy man, being extremely cold, asked to at least be warmed by their fire, but the entire village shunned him.

The lazy man, wandering in the snowstorm, eventually collapsed in the snow.

Perhaps pitying the lazy man? A flame descended from the sky after hearing the dying man's wish to be warmed by a fire.

But that flame was as cold as the ice at the mountain's peak. The flame used the lazy man's body as fuel and coldly blazed. The fire didn't stop there but engulfed the village that had cast out the lazy man.

All of this was a tragedy that happened because the lazy man was lazy.]

According to the fairy tale, the legend of Aphoom-Zhah was of a deity that burned with corpses as fuel.

A being that appeared without borrowing a human body, in other words, one of the "ancient ones" Yurik had mentioned.

So at first, he thought he'd faint upon encountering it or that something strange would happen, like with the Winter Giant, but nothing happened.

He understood the reason when he examined the flame beyond the wall more closely.

The size of the flame was pitifully small.

The blazing white flame was threatening, but its size was considerably different from what he had imagined.

If this fire had been just a bit larger, his flesh and muscles would have frozen and stiffened from the moment he was down there.

He cautiously addressed the flame.

"I... no, what do you mean by saying I understand? I don't know anything."

[You have already seen. You have seen enough, and you will see more. There is nothing for me to tell you.]

What had he seen?

The eerie voice continued.

[You are not one of my subjects. You have not been, are not, and will not be a subject of anyone. But you can serve me.]

"Serve?"

[Serve me and worship me. Receive my blessing and spread my seeds beyond the polar region. Beyond this world, in the realm of dreams...]

The blessing of an ancient one.

In the original work, there was a passage that if one served such gods, the god would bestow a special blessing upon the worshipper.

But there was no exact mention of what the blessing entailed.

"What kind of blessing do you mean?"

[Ice and cold, everything under my authority will move as if they were your own limbs.]

For a moment, he almost cried out in surprise, but he held back.

The ability to control ice and snow!

How useful would that be in the north?

Even outside the north, as long as it wasn't an extremely hot place, it would have tremendous effect.

"How should I serve you? Do I need to offer sacrifices?"

[Meet me in dreams. Worship me, move according to my will, and tell me stories of things that are not dreams. You will understand the secrets of the universe and the movements of planets. When you leave the dream, you will be reborn as my first worshipper.]

The content of the deal, which could almost be considered outrageous, made his head spin.

To see a god in dreams.

Wasn't that a serious level of mental interference?

His sleep was already disturbed from time to time, and now he'd be tormented even in his dreams?

The ability to handle ice was certainly tempting, but he wasn't confident that he could bear such a risk.

Ah, come to think of it.

"Would you consider accepting another worshipper? He's much healthier and stronger than me. And, and handsome too."

It seemed better for Leandros to be able to control ice than for him.

But the flame remained silent.

It seemed Aphoom-Zhah didn't want to take Leandros as a worshipper.

Somehow, it felt like putting a cherished item up for sale at a market, only to have no buyers.

Damn it.

"Or, how about slightly different terms? I'll tell you stories in dreams. But please let the ability be transferred to someone I designate."

The white light flickered.

After waiting for a long time, a whisper was heard.

[My servant who does not serve me and does not believe in me. Come to the Dreamland. Blaze within my radiance. Let it be as you desire. Come close, you who do not believe in me. My only worshipper...]

His hair made crackling sounds as it broke, and his fingertips not only became numb but developed white frost.

When his breath touched the translucent wall, the moisture climbed up the wall.

Enduring the white snowflakes drawing on his cheeks, he listened for a long time to the whisper beyond the wall.

It was a story from ancient times that he heard with his eyes closed.

* * *

"...Grace!"

From somewhere, he heard a voice calling him.

A hard fragment was held in his hand.

It was an object he didn't even know when he had started holding.

Where had he been trying to go?

What had he been trying to do?

He couldn't think of anything, as if his brain had turned to mush.

Yet, he remembered one thing he had to do.

He extended his hand to the shadow before his eyes.

His frozen, bent fingers unfolded one by one, revealing the hard fragment.

Take it, eat it.

I brought it for you.

Besides muttering these words, he couldn't do anything else.

The shadow hesitated, then took the fragment.

As his hand became lighter, he was finally able to smile.

And then, like a blown fuse, he immediately fell into sleep.