In front of Legra’s hut.

Teresse and Legra stood as their breath fogged white in the cold air. Both wore coats made of various animal hides crudely sewn together.

The heavy, uncomfortable garments had Teresse fidgeting constantly, her body protesting the rough stitching. Legra, by contrast, looked at ease, even with a pack on his back.

Not wanting to seem less capable than a child, Teresse limited her protests to fidgeting and did not complain.

A short while later, Sevha emerged from the hut. He too wore a hide coat. Beneath it was his hunter’s gear, minus the scarf.

Legra watched Sevha fasten a knife and handaxe to his belt and inspect the bow in his hand, then spoke.

“It was my father’s, but I’ve maintained it daily. It won’t fail you.”

“Thank you for entrusting me with it.” Sevha shouldered the pack he had left by the door. “Provisions?”

“Packed. We can last two weeks.” Legra patted his own pack.

Teresse spoke up, her face full of concern. “Legra. You don’t have to come with us.”

“Quiet, witch. I will see Lord Sevha over the mountains. I cannot forsake the Dan Anse family twice.”

Sevha sighed at the boy’s stubborn words. He looked down past Legra’s hut toward Beak Fortress below.

“Magus. Legra. The real Frost Mountains begin just a little higher from here. Be careful.”

The real Frost Mountains. Teresse mulled over his words as she gazed down at Beak Fortress.

“They bored the Great Underground Road through the mountains because they were too hard to cross, yes?”

“It’s not the climb that’s hard. It’s surviving once you’re up there.”

Sevha recalled old memories.

“To become the First Hunter, I lived near the summit for a year. I learned one thing: before nature, there is no strong or weak.”

A place where the ceaseless, bitter wind tore at flesh and relentless snow froze the bone—pure wilderness that humbled the strong and weak alike. The Frost Mountains Sevha remembered were a hell of their own.

“In any case, the higher we go, don’t breathe too deeply. The cold air will freeze your lungs.”

At Sevha’s advice, Teresse wagged her index finger.

“You don’t suffocate because your lungs freeze. You suffocate because the higher you go, the thinner the natural mana becomes.”

“Right. Thanks for the lesson. Let’s go.”

“It’s true!”

Sevha ignored her and started up the mountain ridge. Teresse and Legra followed. 

The great journey had begun, but the atmosphere was far from lively. A heavy silence settled over Sevha’s party as they ascended the mountain range.

All they could see was the ridge, buried in perpetual snow. The pure, suffocating white seemed to whisper a constant warning.

Crunch…

This is a place no one has defiled.

Crunch… crunch…

This is a place no one can defile.

Crunch… crunch… crunch…

This is a place that will never forgive those who defile it.

“Haaa….”

How many footprints had they left to mar the pure white ridge?

When Teresse’s breathing grew ragged, Sevha stopped, leading them to rest behind a nearby rock.

The pattern repeated itself. Sevha would call a halt whenever Teresse could no longer hide her exhaustion. He knew that forcing her onward, as he might have before meeting Legra, would be murder here.

They climbed, rested, climbed, and rested again.

They repeated this sequence dozens of times on the white ridge, where the scenery never changed.

At last, the landscape shifted from suffocating white to an ominous sunset glow.

And then, an object the color of blood came into Sevha’s view.

A bear’s corpse?

As Sevha approached it, Teresse collapsed onto the snow.

Sounding exhausted, she asked, “How long will it take to cross these mountains?”

Sevha knew the answer, but hesitated to tell her. He glanced over, thinking she might despair if she knew the truth.

But Teresse was smiling. Gazing at a sky vaster than any she had ever seen, she looked like a child on a long-awaited adventure.

Sevha didn’t understand why she was so captivated by a sky that was always there, but he could see in her smile that the truth of their journey wouldn’t break her spirit.

“At this pace, a week to the summit.”

“If we hurry...”

“Do you want to hurry to your judgment? Goddess Diaka might praise your faith. Or maybe curse you for an idiot.”

Teresse dropped the idea and changed the subject. “We’re not walking at night, are we?”

“Of course not.”

“I don’t see anywhere to rest.”

“There are places, if you look. The problem is, any decent spot will already be occupied.”

“I doubt there are other people in these mountains... so we have to fight for a place to rest?”

Sevha nodded, examining the wounds on the bear. It was covered in gashes torn by long claws. For a body that was still warm, it was strangely stiff.

Claws. Paralysis poison. It left the body, which means it killed for sport.

Sevha thought back to his time in the Frost Mountains and recalled a certain monster. He looked in the opposite direction from where the bear’s head was pointing.

The creature’s lair will be in the direction the bear fled from.

Sevha motioned to the others with his head and started walking.

Time passed. The sun set, and a cold so intense it made the bones scream began to set in.

Whooo…

They arrived at the mouth of a cave.

“Hunter. Is this where we’re resting tonight?”

“It’s the place we’ll have to fight for in order to rest.”

“What do we have to fight?”

Instead of answering, Sevha turned to Legra. “Have you ever fought a frost hag?”

“No. But my father taught me how to hunt them.”

After a moment’s thought, Sevha handed his bow and quiver to the boy, declaring, “You’re the archer.”

“I understand.”

Then Sevha drew the knife from his belt.

He said, “Magus. You... don’t leave Legra’s side.”

Sevha’s party entered the cave.

Inside was warmer than outside, but the atmosphere was more sinister. Dried, dark red blood was caked onto the frost-covered ceiling, walls, and floor.

In the depths of the cave, they found its master—the source of the bloodstains.

It was a large cavern, coated in frost, its ceiling thick with icicles. A grotesque creature lay asleep on a rock in the center.

It looked like an old woman with disheveled hair, but a closer look revealed it was not human. Its emaciated body was sparsely covered in fur. Its mouth protruded into a snout. Its arms reached its knees, and its fingernails were as long as daggers.

A frost hag.

It was a monster unique to these mountains. Seeing that the frost hag was still asleep, Legra quietly set down his pack and tried to approach for a surprise attack. 

But Sevha pulled him back by the shoulder.

“Legra. You learned the hunting method, but you don’t know the creature.”

Sevha dropped his own pack with a thud. He continued speaking as he walked toward the frost hag.

“Frost hags hunt for sport. They’re intelligent enough to mimic the cries of their victims to lure other prey.”

He stopped just out of reach, close enough to charge in a single bound.

He called out flatly, “How long are you going to pretend to be asleep?”

The frost hag slowly rose. It fixed Sevha with its yellow eyes and grinned, revealing sharp teeth.

It mimicked the cry of its last victim.

“Help—me!”

Then, the frost hag leaped.

“Legra! This one has hunted people! Don’t let your guard down!”

Sevha’s knife met the hag’s claws. He parried the slash, shoved the creature back, and sidestepped.

As he cleared the line of fire, Legra shot an arrow.

The boy may have been young, but he was of the Anse. The arrow flew true, straight for the frost hag’s leg.

But the hag leaped back swiftly, dodging the arrow. It clung to the wall, scrambled up it, and hung from the ceiling.

It looked down at Sevha and Legra, then its gaze settled on Teresse, who was oddly scanning the cavern instead of the fight.

It grinned.

“Help—me!”

The frost hag launched itself from the ceiling toward Legra.

Sevha jumped in front of the boy, blocking the claws again. He pushed them away and swung his knife.

The frost hag bent backward, the blade whistling past its face. It snapped upright and swung both sets of claws at Sevha in a wide arc.

Sevha slid back, evading the attack, then immediately closed the distance, engaging in a flurry of strikes and parries.

This was the only way to hunt a frost hag. The monster was too swift; one person had to pin it down while another crippled its legs.

“Lord Sevha!” Legra shouted and fired.

The moment Sevha threw himself aside, the arrow flew past, aimed at the hag’s leg. 

But the creature leaped sideways, easily dodging it.

Too slow.

Legra’s shot was accurate, but it lacked the power of an adult’s, and thus the speed.

Legra’s arrows aren’t fast enough to cripple it…

As Sevha considered this, the frost hag once again clung to the ceiling. He stopped thinking and focused on its movements.

Who will you target...

As if in answer, the hag leaped at Legra.

Sevha ran to intercept, but the monster twisted in mid-air, landing not before Legra, but directly in Sevha’s path.

His stance broken, Sevha couldn’t avoid the claws that raked across his right leg. He immediately rolled backward and got to his feet, limping.

The wound is shallow, but... the damn bitch.

A familiar numbness spread through his leg—the paralysis poison on the hag’s claws. He couldn’t move far from Legra now; he wouldn’t be fast enough to protect him.

Sevha stood his ground. The frost hag grinned, as if to say his resistance was meaningless.

It was then.

“Calculations complete!”

Teresse, who had been scanning the cavern, suddenly broke into a run toward a far corner.

“What are you—!”

“Keep it in the center for ten seconds!”

“What?”

“Sevha!”

Hearing Teresse call him by name made Sevha’s heart pound once, hard. That single beat screamed at him to trust her.

He clenched his teeth and charged the frost hag. “Ten seconds then!”

The hag felt a strange anxiety at Teresse’s behavior. It lunged for her, but Legra was faster, firing an arrow to block its path.

The moment the arrow halted its charge, Sevha was there, swinging his knife.

“Ten!”

The frost hag parried the knife but was pushed back toward the center of the cavern.

“Nine!”

Sevha dodged the creature’s claws with minimal movement, giving it no room to maneuver. He couldn’t evade completely and took a shallow cut on his left shoulder.

“Eight...!”

His shoulder went numb, but Sevha didn’t yield, sticking close.

“Seven!”

And so the exchange continued. Even as its claws tore at him, Sevha gave the frost hag no opportunity to reach Teresse.

“Six! Five! Four...!”

Realizing it had to take Sevha down first, the hag attacked him in earnest. Another set of claws tore across his skin.

“Three!”

Then another.

“Two!”

And another.

“One!”

As numbness spread through all his limbs, Sevha cried out, “Teresse!”

Just as he yelled her name, Teresse reached the cavern wall. A quick smile flashed across her face before she kicked a precise spot on the rock.

CRACK!

Sevha heard the sound of ice shattering from above. He rolled backward.

The frost hag looked up. A massive icicle was falling toward it.

Beyond the falling ice, it saw Teresse pointing, an obnoxious smirk on her face.

“O Fangs of Winter, pierce thy enemy.”

As she finished her incantation, the icicle slammed into the ground in front of the frost hag.

KRAKOOM!

A second, hidden by the first, plunged into the creature’s left shoulder.

“Kaaa!”

Immediately, another impaled its right thigh.

“Kaaaaa!”

As the frost hag screeched, Sevha rose and rushed it.

He slammed his knee into the icicle in its thigh, driving it deeper. Then he brought the pommel of his knife down on the icicle in its shoulder, ramming it further in.

The hag opened its snout in an agonized shriek.

“Help—”

Sevha drove his knife up under its jaw, the blade punching through its skull.

Unable to finish its scream, the frost hag’s bloodshot eyes stared at him. Sevha met its gaze and coldly wrenched the knife free.

The creature collapsed, twitched, and then lay still.

As soon as he confirmed it was dead, Sevha fell to the floor.

“Lord Sevha!” Legra rushed over, his face filled with worry, and checked Sevha’s wounds.

Teresse, in contrast, stood behind Legra, puffed out her chest like a proud child, and grinned. “So? Was I finally helpful?”

“You scared me to death, running out like—! Damn it... how did you bring down all those icicles with one kick?”

“Magic!” Teresse winked.

Sevha was about to yell at her for spouting nonsense, but instead let out a sigh. He closed his eyes and spoke in an exhausted voice.

“Well done... damn you.”

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