Chapter 362: To the White Snowfield (1)

Ketal said they needed to prepare, yet there was little to gather. The work ahead felt less like packing supplies and more like setting his mind in order. Ketal spoke to the people around him, then made ready to leave for the White Snowfield. He intended to go alone.

Just before he set out, Helia asked him in a careful voice, “May I come with you?”

“You will follow me? For what reason?”

“With the Tower Master not being able to fight, I am arguably the strongest remaining on the Mortal Realm,” she explained. That was neither exaggeration nor pride. No one living on the Mortal Realm could reach Helia’s level. “Because of that, I have a duty to verify the barbarians.”

Ketal would bring hundreds of barbarians, beings from the Demon Realm, into the world. Helia felt obliged to watch him and watch them. She also knew there was nothing she could do to stop it. If he failed to bring them, the Mortal Realm would fall. Even so, the thought of looking away made her uneasy, so she made the request.

“More than anything, I am curious,” she continued.

She wanted to know how the barbarians lived inside the White Snowfield, and she wanted to know what Ketal had been among them. Ketal looked at her. Serena, who stood beside Helia, hesitated and raised her hand.

“Could I come as well?”

A faint curiosity touched her face. Serena, the Holy Sword, knew everything of the Mortal Realm, yet the White Snowfield lay outside her knowledge. The place inspired both fear and aversion, but because she stood close to Ketal, she found herself drawn to the land where he had been born and raised.

Ketal stroked his chin and studied the two of them. Serena wore the appearance of a young girl. The holy power she carried would not move barbarians the way it moved people of the world. The same would hold true for Helia, whose outward form was that of a woman in her early twenties. More to the point, both bodies looked soft. Neither showed even the fine hardness of trained muscle.

Maybe it’s going to be okay,

Ketal thought.

With these two, the White Snowfield would not take offense in ways that created new trouble. Ketal finished weighing the thought and nodded.

“Very well. You may come.”

“Truly?” Helia replied, her eyes widening. She had hoped to be accepted but had expected refusal. Ketal spoke as if it made no difference.

“Neither of you will cause me trouble. I do give one warning. Treat this as a journey you stake your life on. I can protect you, but not perfectly.”

Both were Hero fighters. Even so, inside that land, not even the two of them could be certain of survival. The two nodded, faces set.

***

The group moved at once. The matter did not allow for rest or long planning. After leaving short messages with those closest to them, they turned toward the White Snowfield.

“This is the place,” Ketal said when they reached a forest near the border, and old feelings softened his expression.

He had come out to the world through this very forest. Memory and sensation returned in a quiet tide. There had been an elf village nearby. Elves had been the first people he had seen beyond the White Snowfield. He wanted to greet them, yet there was no time, so he quietly widened his senses.

Helia and Serena flinched at once. It felt as if the world itself had been picked up and placed in Ketal’s hand.

“Ketal?” Helia asked him.

“It is nothing,” Ketal replied, smiling. His expanded sense touched the village in the trees.

They are well. That’s enough for now,

Ketal said inwardly.

“Follow me,” he ordered as he stepped forward.

“Yes,” Helia said.

“Understood,” Serena added.

They moved behind him with care until they reached the border of the White Snowfield.

“So this is the White Snowfield,” Helia murmured, her face carrying an expression of strangeness.

On the far side stretched a world of white, a deep cold spiraling endlessly through it. Yet on their side, the ground remained calm, untouched by any trace of frost. Serena stood in silence, staring ahead. The world had a seam, a delicate divide where reality seemed to thin, and beyond it lay a scene that resembled a painting brushed onto the far side of glass.

Ketal looked around and spoke under his breath. “It has weakened.”

“It has weakened?” Helia asked him.

“Yes, but there is a faint bite of cold here.”

“Is that so?” Helia sharpened her senses as far as she could and felt nothing at all.

How fine is his perception?

she wondered. She let out a quiet breath of respect.

“Even so, it is not weak enough for the Primarch to step out. There is a reason why it used the passage through the Empire.”

If that was true, there was no need to worry that other beings would wander out. Having settled that, Ketal stepped forward.

“Let’s go in.”

Helia and Serena paused only for a heartbeat before stepping forward. Together they crossed the threshold and entered the White Snowfield.

The cold struck Helia at once, sharp and absolute, unlike anything she had ever known. Instinctively, she called upon divine grace, wrapping her body in a sheath of holy light to ward it off. Serena followed her lead, her own radiance kindling in answer. Ketal alone continued on without any defense, his stride steady and unhurried, his body bare to the merciless air as though the frost itself held no claim over him.

“Are you all right?” Helia asked him.

“I was born here and grew up here. There is nothing to trouble me.”

He strode ahead. Helia matched his pace and asked, “What should we do now?”

“This is the outer belt.”

The White Snowfield split between an outer region and an inner one. The outer belt felt less alien. Even Milayna had once chosen to pass through the outer belt as a merchant route long ago. A group of mercenaries could push across it without trouble, and the records for doing so were not few.

“We need to pass the outer belt and enter the inner region. For now, we move forward.”

“Understood.”

“Yes,” Serena said.

They pushed on. Monsters appeared one by one to bar their path. However, none carried the strength that required Ketal to take action. Serena and Helia handled them without difficulty.

“It has been a while,” Ketal said, chewing a piece of black slime.

“Does it taste good?” Serena asked him with a reluctant look.

𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

“Will you try some?”

“N-no...” She shook her head immediately.

Ketal let out a brief laugh. The texture yielded beneath his fingers with a pleasant elasticity, something he had never encountered in the Outside. During the long period of his confinement, he had eaten it often, and the faint familiarity of it now drew a quiet, almost nostalgic satisfaction.

“I miss it,” he said quietly, though the words carried no truth.

He spat the piece out rather than swallow it and continued walking. Before long, they reached the edge of the outer belt.

“From here on, we cross into the inner region,” Ketal said.

Helia gulped. There was no information past this point. No one who had entered had come back alive. She stepped into the inner region.

The change struck her immediately. Frost bloomed across the divine barrier encasing her body, spreading in delicate lines that cracked and webbed before she could brace herself against the force.

“What is this?” she said.

She reinforced the barrier in a hurry, yet even that did not fix the problem completely. A terrible cold gnawed at the shield.

She doubted her own eyes. “The cold is hunting for the barrier’s weak points.”

“The cold here is not a feature of nature. It carries hostility and intent like a killer. Prepare yourselves,” Ketal explained.

The world itself was different. Both women gulped and hardened their protections. Ketal moved forward at an unhurried pace.

After several minutes, the sensation reached them—subtle at first, then steadily growing. Something vast was drawing near, its presence pressing against the edges of perception like the slow tightening of air before a storm.

“Something is approaching,” Ketal said, taking the axe in hand.

Helia and Serena gathered grace. Across the killing cold, something drew near. A monster from within the inner White Snowfield moved toward them. The two women tensed. Ketal set his feet to answer at once. Then he paused as he stretched his senses.

His perception left no room for doubt. The figure approaching through the frost did not belong to the White Snowfield. A shape began to solidify within the swirling cold, and as its outline grew clearer, Helia’s eyes widened in silent recognition.

“A person...?” she murmured.

An old man stood before them, his beard white and long, his clothes no more than a worn mat thrown over his shoulders, the blade in his hand dulled and notched. Nothing about him said barbarian. He looked from one to the other and stopped at Helia. His eyes widened.

“Lady Helia?” The man spoke the common tongue with fluent ease.

Helia faltered, her steps slowing as disbelief caught in her breath. A being born of the White Snowfield had spoken her name, his voice carrying through the cold with a weight that made the air itself seem to tighten around her.

“You know me?” she asked the man.

“What are you saying? It is me!” the man replied.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Admittedly, my appearance has changed. Even so, I did not think you would fail to recognize me. I am wounded by that.”

He smoothed his beard. The motion made Helia realize who he was.

“Hashvalt?”

“You recognize me at last. Yes. It is me!” the man replied, smiling. “I am the fool who entered the White Snowfield to prove his strength. It has been a while.”

***

Ketal remembered the rumor the moment he heard Hashvalt speak. Three months before Ketal left the White Snowfield, he had heard that a Hero fighter had walked into the White Snowfield of his own will to prove his strength.

Ketal had once said he could not comprehend it. He could not understand why anyone would abandon a world so beautiful only to step willingly into that abominable place. Back then, he had asked where such a fool could possibly be found, his tone carrying neither mockery nor curiosity, only the quiet weight of disbelief.

Now that fool stood in front of him. Helia stepped forward in shock.

“By the heavens. Hashvalt, you lived!” she said.

“Yes. It took hard work, but I endured. It feels good to see people again.” He laughed, deep and easy. “How long have I been here? With no day or night, the meaning of time slips away.”

“It has been over a year,” Helia told him.

“A year. I survived a long time.”

“Truly.” Helia calmed her racing heart and asked, “How have you been living?”

“It is hard, but livable.”

“Livable?” Helia repeated, dumbfounded.

If Ketal was right, the inner region made survival difficult even for Hero fighters. Hashvalt was indeed a Hero, yet not one of the very best. To call such a life livable felt strange.

Hashvalt went on at a leisurely pace, “The monsters are strong, but nothing I could not handle. The land is harsh, but my power is enough to endure it.”

After listening in silence, Ketal decided to speak. “Can you tell me where you have been staying?”

“Near here. I found a good cave and settled there.”

“I see.” Ketal nodded and murmured, “You were straddling the boundary between the outer belt and the inner region. That would make it manageable.”

“What?” Hashvalt said. He looked puzzled at Ketal’s aside but did not press. He had another question and turned to Helia. “For you to come here, Lady Helia—what brings you? Did you come to find me?”

“No. We came to find the barbarians of the White Snowfield.”

“The barbarians?” Hashvalt tilted his head. “I have stayed here more than a year and have never seen such people.”

“You have not seen them?”

“It is only a legend, is it not? They likely went extinct because nothing can survive this cold. I can scarcely endure it. I find it hard to believe barbarians could.” Hashvalt spoke with pride.

“Ah... I see.”

Helia glanced sideways at Ketal instead of answering.