Chapter 387: The Story After (19) [Side Story, Part 19]

Chapter 387: The Story After (19) [Side Story, Part 19]

“Albraham...? Wait, he really said that Albraham was his name?” Arkemis said to Ketal.

“That is how I remember it. Why? Is that a name you know?” Ketal replied, nodding.

“It is a name I know in a way. Although it feels strange to say I know it.” Arkemis spoke slowly, her words stumbling. She took a breath and continued. “In this world, there is a fairy tale that has been passed down among humans since very ancient times.”

It was a story from a distant age. There had once been a man named Albraham, a tremendously great adventurer who had approached dragons, those mighty and terrifying beings of legend, and had risked his life to draw near them and become their friend.

Because of Albraham, humans stopped seeing dragons only as objects of fear. They began to see them as beings of wonder and mystery.

He approached the people of the forest, the elves, and revealed the existence of spirits to the world. Because of Albraham, humans came to understand that nature itself held living presences.

He approached the people beneath the earth, the dwarves, became their friend, and came away with ores such as Mithril and Adamantadium. Because of Albraham, humanity learned that the earth concealed metals that held mystery and power.

Fairies, magic, alchemy—most of the wonders that were now common knowledge on the continent, most of the things people took for granted when they spoke of the Myst, had first been brought to humans by that single legendary adventurer.

And that adventurer was Albraham.

If not for Albraham, humanity would still be pulling plows with bare hands and rubbing sticks together to make fire. After presenting mankind with a mountain of knowledge and treasure, the legendary adventurer declared that his work was done and returned to the mysterious realm from which he had come.

That was the tale of Albraham.

Ketal listened with an intrigued expression, and it reminded him of something. In his world, there was a story of a being who brought fire to humans, a god of Greek and Roman myth who stole power from the heavens and delivered it to mankind—Prometheus.

Albraham sounded very similar, a bringer of gifts and a messenger of knowledge. Stories like that existed in every world, so nothing about it felt inherently strange. Even so, something bothered him.

“I never heard that story before,” he said.

“Of course you did not,” Arkemis replied. “It is almost like a spoken legend.”

No one could even prove the man had truly existed. It was a tale passed from parent to child, then from that child, once grown, to their own children. It was a story told at bedsides and by hearths, woven into the fabric of childhood. Written records were rare, and very few documents even mentioned the name.

“He is a figure who barely shows up even in old books, almost entirely confined to fairy tales,” she said. “And he lived long before that emperor.”

The emperor who had challenged the White Snowfield, lost, and barely escaped alive to tell the world that barbarians lived there remained a figure whose tale bordered on legend, yet clear records still existed. Historians argued over the details, but none disputed that he had truly lived.

Albraham, on the other hand, left no firm trace. He was a man who lived only in stories, a figure no one truly believed had existed. And yet that man had been real.

Albraham had set out for the White Snowfield on his final journey, met Ketal there, and ended his life in that frozen land. Right now, she was hearing about him directly from the mouth of the one who had been with him at the end.

She had known that Ketal came from a time beyond ordinary reckoning, but she had never imagined he had crossed paths with someone spoken of only in myth. It struck her all at once. Every word she heard from him now, every fragment of his memories, would be worth a fortune to historians.

It felt almost wasteful to keep it all to herself.

“So,” she said, trying to calm herself, “what happened after that?”

Her golden eyes shone. Ketal gave a small, amused smile and picked up the tale.

***

Albraham watched him with the gaze of someone who had found an impossible curiosity.

“And most of all,” he said, “your existence is too extraordinary.”

He had only been teaching Ketal his language for about a week. It had been crude instruction, delivered in poor conditions, with almost no proper materials. Even so, Ketal was already able to hold a conversation without much difficulty. Calling him a genius would not have been an exaggeration.

However, that was not what fascinated Albraham the most.

“You are intelligent,” Albraham said. “You can talk. You can think logically, and you know how to shape your words so that others accept them. You have your own values and firm beliefs. And that is still not all. You carry a great deal of knowledge that I have never encountered before.”

Ketal and Albraham had spoken at length. Among those many conversations were stories from Earth, things no one in this world had ever known.

“The barbarians here are nothing like you,” Albraham continued. “You are the only one of your kind.”

Even while his body fell apart, Albraham’s eyes shone with curiosity.

“I have had a very long career as an adventurer,” he said. “I have seen all manner of strange things. Yet I have never met anything like you. Among all the mysteries I have encountered, you are the most unusual.”

In that distant past, the first being from the fantasy world to truly sit with Ketal and look him in the eye had evaluated him like that.

“Perhaps,” Ketal said, his lips curving faintly. However, at the time, he had not been able to accept those words at all. “To me, everything

you

are saying is a wonder.”

“For you right now, that is probably true,” Albraham said, then coughed, doubling over as more blood spilled from his mouth. This time, the blood was dark, almost black.

Ketal forced him to lie down.

“Rest,” he said. “You can tell me the rest tomorrow.”

“I hope tomorrow comes,” Albraham said. “Ah, it saddens me that I will not see you walk out of this place.”

“We do not even know if I can reach the outside,” Ketal replied.

“You will,” Albraham said. There had been no room for doubt in his voice. “A being like you does not fail to reach his goal. I stake my name on it. Someday you will leave this place and you will fulfill your desire.”

“Thank you,” Ketal had said quietly.

Those words had buoyed him for a very long time.

Arkemis listened, then asked him in a subdued voice, “What happened after that?”

“He died two days later,” Ketal said. “In keeping with his last request, I left his body and all his belongings somewhere in the White Snowfield.”

Arkemis let out a long breath.

“So that is how the great adventurer who met the barbarians in the White Snowfield met his end,” she murmured. “Do you have any of his keepsakes?”

“I have none,” Ketal said. “He asked that everything of his be left behind in the White Snowfield. Even if I had brought something with me, the time that has passed is too great. Anything that fragile would have rotted away long ago.”

“I see,” Arkemis said. She clicked her tongue softly, regret in her eyes.

“After Albraham’s death, I gained a purpose,” he said.

He would escape that wretched land and reach the fantasy beyond it. He decided to move toward that goal.

The first thing he did was simple. He chose a direction and walked. The White Snowfield was vast. No matter how far he went, there was only white. He had once believed that the snowfield was all there was in this world.

However, Albraham had shattered that belief. So he walked for months, using the horizon and his own footsteps as his only guides. Eventually, he found the border between the White Snowfield and the world of fantasy.

“But I could not pass,” he said.

An invisible wall blocked his way. He pushed and pressed, tried every trick he could think of, but it was like striking air that had turned to steel. He knew then that brute strength alone would not break it. He needed another way.

As he pondered, his gaze shifted toward the System that had followed him since the day he had awakened in the ice. The Quests lay before him.

[Quest #4]

[Obtain an important position within the tribe.]

Until then, he had ignored such things. To him, the world had been meaningless, and the Quests had seemed just as pointless. Now that he had a goal, they looked different.

He began to clear Quests.

He threw himself at each one with all his strength. As he did, his influence over the tribe naturally grew. He came to possess power that no barbarian could match, and under his leadership, the tribe expanded. A people who had once been little more than prey grew strong.

Time passed. Those who had known him when he first arrived eventually died, children grew into adults, and adults became elders. The barbarians came to follow him as their leader, and at some point, without ever choosing to claim the title himself, he became the chieftain.

Under his guidance, the tribe grew to a hundred times the size it had been when he arrived. And when a group swelled that quickly, conflict was inevitable. Eventually, they attracted the attention of one of the monsters that ruled the White Snowfield.

“The White Serpent,” Ketal said. His lips quirked as though at an old annoyance. “That was the beginning of a very long relationship.”

***

Laughter rang out across the snow.

“

Uwahahahaha.

”

“

Waaaah

, die!”

Weapons slammed against weapons, and the sound of metal striking metal mixed with the crack of bone, horn, and stone colliding again and again. The barbarians were at it once more, holding duels and killing one another for the sake of proving their strength.

Ketal paid them no mind. At first, he had tried to stop them, thinking the tribe needed every fighter it had.

After many meaningless attempts, he had given up. Even when he beat them bloody, they went right back to challenging one another the moment they healed.

Instead, he focused on something else—the Quests.

I haven’t gotten a Quest in a while,

he thought.

Expanding the tribe’s territory had been the last clear task. After that, no new Quests appeared. Until then, each time he finished one, the next had followed immediately. This was the first time the chain had broken.

It unsettled him, and he could not decide what it meant. It felt as though the System was telling him to proceed on his own from that point onward. He was still wrestling with the thought when his expression changed.

Something had arrived, something enormous—not in size, but in presence. A towering rank pressed down on the world, making the air feel heavy and the snow thin beneath his feet. It was a pressure he had never sensed before. Ketal tensed reflexively as he grabbed his axe and strode out of the village.

“Ah,” he breathed as he looked upon the sky.

It was a serpent so vast it seemed to touch the sky, its entire body the color of snow. For a heartbeat, he forgot the danger and simply stared.

Among all the things he had seen in that frozen land, the serpent was the one that most resembled the fantasy he had dreamed of. The White Serpent looked down upon the barbarians and flicked its tongue.

“So the insects that have been befouling my snowfield are you.” A voice like grinding ice spread across the air, worming its way into every ear.

The barbarians went rigid, their faces turning as pale as the snow. They were not a people who usually feared death, and many among them even embraced it. Yet this moment was different. The fear that seized them now came from instinct, as their bodies recognized that they stood before something far beyond them.

“Wretched, low-lifes chattering so loudly that you soil my senses,” the Serpent said. “Very well. I have come to a decision.”

It lowered its head. The simple act stirred a storm.

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

“I will grant all of you the honor of entering my belly.”

Its jaws opened wide, and only then did the barbarians scream.

“

Uwaaaah!

”

“

Aaaah!

”

They scattered in all directions, howling.

“Run!” Ketal shouted. “Spread out!”

There was no victory here. That creature stood outside the realm of life. It was a monster that had slipped its leash. He ordered the barbarians to flee and turned to do the same.

In that instant, a window appeared before his eyes.

[Quest #132]

[Drive the White Serpent out of your territory.]

He stared for a fraction of a second before thought vanished and instinct took hold. His hand tightened around the axe, and his feet slammed against the ice. The Serpent, watching the barbarians flee, felt satisfied.

“Yes, run, lower creatures,” it said. “I will chase you down and swallow you one by one!”

Its massive body shifted as it prepared to slither after them. Then it felt something strange. One barbarian was flying toward its head.

It was a mere barbarian, not running, but charging. The idea had never occurred to it. Because it seemed impossible, its response came late. The axe smashed into the top of its skull.

Crack.

“

Keek!

” The Serpent’s scream shook the snow as its enormous body slammed down into the ground.