Chapter 115

A balcony. A laundry drying rack and a window opened to the pleasant weather.

He squinted for a moment due to the brightness, then looked down at the damp laundry in his hands.

What had he been doing just now?

Ah, he had been hanging laundry at home.

He shook out the T-shirt and hung it on the drying rack.

The weather was nice, so it would probably dry quickly.

From behind him, his brother's voice was heard.

-Brother, what's the most interesting book you've read so far?

"Me? I don't read much. You're asking the wrong person."

-How about movies?

"I don't know much about movies either. These days, movie tickets are worth their weight in gold, so it's hard to go watch them intentionally. Why do you ask so suddenly?"

-I want to write a story that you'd find interesting.

Had they had this conversation before?

He chuckled as he dumped all the remaining laundry from the basket onto the drying rack.

There was a yellow cloak mixed in with the laundry.

"What would I know? I don't know anything about that artistic stuff, so write whatever you like."

-People often read these kinds of things on the bus these days. Do you want to read it during your commute when you're bored? I'll write it for you.

"I just sleep on the bus. So, what kind of story are you going to write?"

-First, you fall into a really suspicious world. And there, you meet the protagonist.

"Sounds interesting. And then?"

-And then you die there first.

"...What?"

When he turned around, it wasn't his home anymore.

Instead of the pleasant sunlight, an eerily bright and large moon hung overhead.

In front of it lay the sprawled carcass of a mutated Vormi with its flank eaten away.

"Uh, uh."

No. This wasn't where he was supposed to be.

He had just been at home.

He fumbled with his clothes, then screamed when he saw the viscous bodily fluids on his hands and ran in the opposite direction.

A terrible smell assaulted his nose from the forest.

Screams echoed from all directions, and the sound of swords clashing was heard.

In the distance, the ducal residence was burning, and at the sudden end of the forest, the eastern pit could be seen.

Beyond the pit was a vast ocean.

The sounds of waves and merpeople's songs intermingled.

As he slowly backed away from the sight, he bumped into something.

When he turned around, Yurik was standing there, wearing unfamiliar armor.

His face was a mess with blood splattered everywhere, and his red eyes gleamed with madness and impulse.

-I told you to run away, Duke.

"I, I, I."

-It's already the fortieth time. How many more times will you die?

A bright red tongue licked the bloodstains on his pale lips.

Yurik raised his sword high.

Unable to move, he screamed and abruptly sat up.

"Stop!"

"Your Grace, are you alright?"

His breath had risen all the way to his chin, as if he had been sprinting.

A drop of sweat slid down from his forehead.

The surroundings were still dark, but a dim light barely illuminated his view.

Looking up, a familiar face was gazing down at him.

"You climbed all the way from below to here and then collapsed. I judged that it would be too difficult to go far like this, so I moved a little and was waiting."

"I climbed all the way here?"

"Yes."

Though his voice came out cracked and unpleasant, Leandros didn't show any reaction.

He had clearly been negotiating with Aphoom-Zhah down there.

His memory was cut off in the middle and was hazy.

"So I came up here and..."

"You handed me something and immediately lost consciousness. Since your entire body was cold, I tried to warm you temporarily, but I couldn't light a fire."

"No. You did well."

Leandros had wrapped his cloak around him.

Since it wasn't as cold here as it had been down below, he returned Leandros's cloak and asked.

"How did you get here?"

"Didn't Your Grace drop a glove? Did nothing happen to you in the tunnel?"

"I heard frightening sounds, so I tried to avoid them and ended up here. I'm sorry for moving on my own."

"You did well. The tunnels were crawling with demonic beasts. It's fortunate if you were able to avoid them."

Leandros placed his hand on his right arm.

Ah, right. He had forgotten about that.

"What happened to this?"

"I fell and tumbled in the middle..."

"I've reset the dislocated shoulder, but the broken arm will need to be properly examined by a physician. Does it hurt?"

"Can I be honest in a manner unbefitting of a duke?"

"Please endure. The stairs shouldn't present any danger, so we'll climb up slowly."

He didn't feel like he could move right now.

He extended his hand to Leandros.

"What I gave you earlier. Show me."

"Do you mean this?"

Leandros took something out from inside his clothes and returned it.

A small ring with a chilling coldness.

The snow-white pill looked as if it were a small snowball compacted together.

But it didn't melt even on his palm, just remained cold.

"You gave it to me, saying something like I should eat it. May I ask what happened down there?"

"The Lord of the Extreme Realm. He was imprisoned beneath the mine."

"By the Lord of the Extreme Realm, you mean..."

"One of the ancient gods Yurik forcibly manifested in this land. I met him, and he wanted to make a deal with me."

"What kind of deal?"

"In exchange for lending me his power, I agreed to meet the god in his dreams."

"Can humans enter a god's dream?"

"I don't know. It's up to the god, isn't it?"

When he returned the white ring to Leandros, he frowned as he examined it, turning it this way and that.

"Did the god give you this?"

"He said that if you eat this, you'd be able to control things like ice, snow, or cold."

"You're giving this to me? Wouldn't it be better for Your Grace to take such a precious thing yourself?"

"I'm a non-combat personnel, so I can't. What if there are side effects from eating such a thing? Of course, you should eat it."

"I see."

Though the mention of side effects was a joke, Leandros nodded seriously and, before he could be stopped, tossed the ring into his mouth.

"How does it taste?"

"May I speak honestly in a manner unbefitting of an escort knight?"

"That's a bit... please bear with it."

Leandros could give as good as he got, it seemed.

When he tried to raise his body, which had been lying across several steps, intense pain was felt throughout his body.

It was the first time he had felt such pain since being squeezed by the octopus in the south.

When he groaned, Leandros laid him back down.

"Lie down a bit longer. We still have a long way to climb ahead."

"But it seems like I'm quite far from the floor already. It must have been heavy, so thank you."

"It's nothing. I didn't do it alone."

"Huh?"

"I received help from what Your Grace brought along."

What had he brought along...?

Seeing him freeze, Leandros asked with a puzzled expression.

"The thing that came with Your Grace. It helped move you. Wasn't it something you gained after meeting that ancient god?"

Having said that, Leandros kindly pointed downward.

He forcibly turned his head to look in the direction Leandros was pointing.

A white, round body.

A head slightly smaller than the body.

Plump, slightly elongated limbs.

Black stones stuck close together on its head.

With these characteristics, it looked just like a...

"S-snowman?"

The moment he saw the snowman sitting round on the stairs, he wondered if he had finally gone crazy.

But Leandros continued unconcerned.

"When I caught you as you were collapsing, I discovered it following behind."

"No, I don't remember receiving such a thing!"

"You don't remember receiving it? Are you saying you didn't bring it along?"

"Would I have accepted such a suspicious thing? Besides, as if that ancient god would give such a cute little thing!"

Leandros looked back and forth between him and the snowman, then swiftly stood up and drew his sword.

"Then I'll cut it down."

But just as Leandros was about to draw his sword, the snowman's head turned sharply.

"Wait."

"Aaaaah! The snowman spoke!"

"If you cut me, I cannot speak. Please wait a moment."

"I said wait."

The snowman wriggled, swinging its short legs and arms, then stood up from its place.

He froze with his mouth half-open.

The snowman looked up at him and spread its hands wide.

"I am the Lord of the Extreme Realm."

"No, don't lie. The Lord of the Extreme Realm doesn't look like that."

"I understand. Current appearance is different. Flames can be divided into embers. I am part of my power. I am a separated self."

"Why did you do such a thing? This is stalking!"

"Monitoring my worshipper."

"What?"

The snowman climbed up a step half its height with difficulty.

Then it pointed at him.

"My first worshipper. Monitoring. Worshipper does not leave the shadow of great Aphoom-Zhah. Protecting. Great god does not abandon worshipper."

"What do you mean by leaving..."

"Leave? Execute. Immediate judgment. Infidel who betrays god? Die."

The AI-like, mechanical speech pattern contained no emotion.

"Worshipper and me. Connected by magic. Worshipper dies? I disappear. Go to myself. Worshipper distances? I melt. Go to myself. Will not separate."

"Connected to me? By whose decision?"

"Worshipper has much magic. I have none. Share worshipper's magic and consciousness. I am worshipper's shared fate entity."

"Leandros! Do something!"

Leandros, who had been watching the talking snowman, made an "Ah" sound and then brought his sword down.

But the snowman didn't split as expected.

Instead,

-Clang!

"Argh!"

There was a metallic sound as the sword hit the snowman.

Leandros opened his eyes wide in surprise, and the snowman turned its head toward him.

"I die? Torment worshipper in Dreamland. Great Aphoom-Zhah torments in dreams until death. Blasphemous. Infidel? Not needed. Die. Understand?"

"...Your Grace, though it's presumptuous, this snowman seems to be warning that if it's attacked, you'll be endangered in some way."

"Why on earth!"

"It seems we can't leave it behind either. What will you do?"

This was driving him crazy.

So to summarize, Aphoom-Zhah had attached a monitor to ensure he didn't stray from the path.

One that couldn't be left far behind, couldn't be harmed, and couldn't be secretly left behind somewhere.

The snowman climbed up with difficulty and stood on top of his foot.

Seeing this, Leandros glanced at him and whispered quietly.

"Shall we take it along?"

"...Damn it."

He could already hear the sounds of this iteration going awry.

In the end, the snowman, he, and Leandros climbed the stairs together.

As he struggled up with Leandros's support, repeatedly resting along the way, something caught his eye after they had climbed a fair distance.

"Over there."

"I noticed as I was coming down. Other places had connected rails, but they were all blocked. Only that one was open for carts to pass through."

Holes punctured in the wall.

Blocked tunnel entrances connected to rails.

Only one of them had a hole open.

Come to think of it, the carts here moved on their own.

If the transport system was semi-automated, then the place where mithril ore had been moved until recently...

"Let's go there."

"In this state, Your Grace?"

"I don't think a single cart would be heavier than the three of us. The distance to that side isn't far, so couldn't we cross it somehow?"

"You're overestimating me too much."

Leandros sighed and rolled up his sleeves.

After crossing the precarious rails, they headed straight up along the tunnel.

In the dark and narrow path, they walked for a long time, relying on Leandros's small torch.

Rest, walk, rest, then walk again.

It was uncomfortable and frightening to be in such a narrow tunnel.

After spending so much time that he could vaguely sense what claustrophobia was, the space widened and the floor became solid.

A spacious area with a floor paved with stones.

One could immediately tell that this wasn't an ordinary mining workshop.

When Leandros opened a creaking iron gate and went outside, a somewhat familiar architectural style came into view.

"It connects with the Margrave's castle."

It was as he had guessed.

Though he wasn't sure exactly where they were, the pillars engraved with decorations similar to the hall of the castle he had seen in the previous iteration, and the material of the solid walls, were very similar.

Leandros asked.

"Did you know it was a path leading here?"

"I just thought it might connect. A lot of resources are needed to summon a god."

"Are you saying that not only people but other things were also mobilized?"

"Mithril ore contains magic, right?"

He remembered what Yvonne had said when she reported the shortage of mithril in the previous iteration.

-Since mithril contains a certain amount of magic even at the ore stage, it also has good compatibility with some parts of demonic beasts.

Moreover, when he first visited this castle, what he had seen was a mountain of mithril ore.

The monster who had been the Margrave was chewing on it.

Thinking about it now, that might have been to absorb the magic in the ore.

Though offering humans was the most orthodox way to summon a god,

At that point, there were no people left in the north.

Come to think of it, in the south, the merpeople had tried to sacrifice themselves to summon a god.

Was it because humans and other species also possessed a certain amount of magic?

Then, what was the reason his one eyeball had accelerated the god's descent?

Just as Yurik's blood had been sprinkled in the sea, his blood had also awakened the Star Walker in the pit.

Perhaps Yurik and he...

"Considering that the castle has a cave connected to the mine, it's not unreasonable that the ore would be concentrated here. Be careful, we don't know what kind of demonic beasts might be ahead."

"There are no demonic beasts."

"What do you mean there are no demonic beasts?"

Leandros, who had been walking ahead, turned to look at him.

He looked at the snowman.

"If we're inside the castle, is it okay to be apart for a while?"

"Fine."

"Leandros, if we reach the castle, take this snowman and go up to the hall alone. The Margrave is there. Look closely at his antennae. Practice using the power you have."

"...Yes, understood."

Leandros nodded, somewhat bewildered.

He looked at him and thought about the north.

In this life, he had decided not to reveal the truth about the north to anyone except Leandros.

There was only one reason he was moving separately.

Leandros shouldn't know what he was trying to do.