*Warning: Curse words*

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Yuzan had fun memories of the snow with his younger sister. He treasured them and always reminisced those times when he was lonely but now, he detested it with a passion.

FUUUUUUUUUUU********KKKKKKKK!!!!

The cold winds blasted towards them as they trudged on the snow.

Fu*k. Fu*k. Fuuuu*k!!!

He was freezing. The cold had sank so deep in his bones he felt like he was no longer made of flesh and bones but ice and snow. This was too much! He wasn't a newbie to snow but this kind of cold was ridiculous! It was a wonder he wasn't a human popsicle yet.

He turned his head to look at Azmir to see how he was doing. He was quiet. Maybe Azmir was doing better than him.

Azmir was shivering and his eyes looked dead and miserable.

Oh. He wasn't doing well either.

Meanwhile, their guide was effortlessly walking on the snow and was she hopping?! Is that a happy walk she's doing?! How dare she?! No, how could she?!

Sylvia, their ethereal sweets-lover guide, was walking on the snowy ground with a smile on her face like she was walking at a meadow on a sunny day.

She caught him looking at her. She tilted her head in a questioning manner and he just glared at her.

She didn't even look like she was suffering from the cold! Hell, she wasn't even bundled up as much as them! She was wearing a fur coat but it looked like it was made for a winter fashion show and not for a deadly climb to a snowy mountain.

Their small group had began the climb to White Peaks that morning. Currently, they had not made any literal climbs yet as the slope was not that steep so it was more like a long walk that was slowly going upwards.

The icy winds were really strong which made their journey a slow one. He wanted to get it over quickly but his body couldn't go any faster despite how much he wanted to.

Mia-chan, your Onii-chan might become a mochi ice cream at this rate.

"L-lady S-S-Sylvia!" Azmir yelled with his teeth chattering.

Sylvia stopped walking to look at him.

"R-rest. We n-n-need to take a rest! Is t-there a shelt-t-ter here?" Azmir yelled over the icy winds.

Sylvia nodded and they began walking again.

A few moments later, they arrived at what looked like a huge boulder of snow which was bigger than them.

Yuzan and Azmir stared at it cluelessly. Sylvia raised her leg and spun. Her foot landed on the huge boulder of snow.

WOOOOOSH!!!!!!!

The snow hollowed out in the center with great force that parted the snow like how Moses parted the Red Sea.

What the hell?

Maybe she's a martial arts expert or something, Yuzan thought.

The boulder wasn't actually a huge piece of rock. It was a small cave. It was still cold inside but at least, they could rest from the feeling of the full blast of icy winds on their faces.

Yuzan and Azmir sat on the ground. Azmir began took out dry branches and timber from his magic pouch and then began trying to make a spark out of them.

CRUCK!

A spark.

Yuzan stared at it intently.

FWOOSH!

Yes! Fire!

Yuzan and Azmir looked at each other grinning in delight. They crouched to the camp fire closer and warmed their hands close to it.

He turned his head to see if Sylvia was going to sit with them but she didn't. She was standing by the mouth of the cave looking like she was about to leave.

What the hell?! Is she going to leave them in the middle of nowhere?!

"Hey! Where are you going?!" Yuzan yelled.

Sylvia raised her chin towards the mouth of the cave as if to say that she was obviously going outside.

Yuzan was angry now.

"Are you just going to leave us here to die?!" Yuzan said.

Sylvia shook her head.

"So, why are you going outside? Do you have a death wish, huh?!" Yuzan said.

Sylvia sighed. She had the kind of expression that looked like she hated talking and it took way too much effort.

"To hunt," Sylvia said.

Yuzan frowned.

"We brought food with us. You can't possibly hunt anything out there? Nothing can survive out there!" Yuzan said.

Sylvia raised an eyebrow as if to say there were animals there that Yuzan just didn't know about.

"You're still going, aren't you? Even if I try to stop you," Yuzan said.

Sylvia nodded.

Yuzan scratched his head in frustration. Was he really supposed to just believe that she was going outside to hunt? What if she leaves them here? They can't make their way back to the village. They'll just get lost in the white expanse and end up dying from the cold.

"I'll allow it but there's a condition," Yuzan said firmly.

She tiled her head in a questioning manner.

"I'm going to poison you. It's not going to do anything to you for an hour. No effects or anything but you have to come back here before an hour runs out so I can purify the poison from your body. If you don't come back in a hour, your whole body will be in pain. You can still walk by then but it will be like hell for you. After another half an hour, you'll just drop dead and die. If you don't come back after an hour and a half, we're getting out of this cave and we're going to return to the village no matter what it takes. We might die too but we haven't been acquainted for long so you might not care. It's your choice. Stay here with us to rest for a bit then we continue our journey or you go out there with poison in your body," Yuzan said.

He knew he was being cruel but he didn't trust this woman. She didn't feel like an ordinary person and he had the feeling that he should be cautious of her.

She held out her wrist to him.

"Do it," Sylvia said.

Yuzan frowned.

"Are you sure? You might be a really good hunter but you'll have a time limit. I'm not kidding you. You're going to die if you don't come back after an hour and a half," Yuzan said.

"Just do it, boy," Sylvia said.

Yuzan took her wrist. He hated how she called him "boy." She didn't use their names and the way she said it, it was like she was talking to a little boy.

Yuzan poisoned her. He wasn't lying about his time limit on her and the poison.

"It's done. You're poisoned now. Get back in a hour before it takes effect," Yuzan said.

Sylvia didn't reply and just walked out of the cave. Her figure vanished in the white surroundings.

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"Yuzan, where's Sylvia?" Azmir asked as Yuzan sat down beside him.

"She's going out to hunt she said," Yuzan replied.

"What?! To hunt?! In this weather?!" Azmir exclaimed.

"My thoughts exactly. Don't worry. I poisoned her," Yuzan said.

"You killed off our guide?!" Azmir shouted.

"Shush. She's not dead. Yet. I just poisoned her. I told her to get back to us in a hour before it takes effect so I can purify the poison from her body," Yuzan said.

Azmir looked even more horrified.

"And how is that supposed to comfort me?! If she doesn't make it back, we're dead too!" Azmir said.

"No, we're not. We'll go back to the village and look for another guide," Yuzan said.

"I don't think we can. We'll get lost!" Azmir said.

"It will be fine. We'll just go straight down. Even if we get lost, as long we go straight down, I'm sure the weather will get warmer and we'll end up reaching a part of the village," Yuzan said trying to sound optimistic.

Azmir sighed.

"I'm going to haunt you when I die," Azmir muttered.

"You can't do that. I'll be dead too. We're just going to be ghost buddies then," Yuzan said.

Azmir looked like he was about to cry.

"I don't want to die," Azmir said. "I'm sorry for telling her to find a shelter. I was just so tired and freezing. I couldn't walk any farther."

"It's fine. I needed to take a break too," Yuzan said.

Yuzan placed his arm around Azmir's shoulder.

"We're going to be fine. I'm sure she'll come back. She looks like she belongs in this mountain. She doesn't even look cold!" Yuzan said.

"Yes. Perhaps she's an ice mage. Although I've never seen one before in Feylantis," Azmir said.

"Perhaps. No use worrying about it now. Let's just wait for her and in the meanwhile, we can warm up our bodies before we go out again," Yuzan said.

Azmir nodded.

Yuzan squeezed Azmir's shoulder and Azmir looked at him curiously.

"What is it?" Azmir asked.

"What do you think is the best way for our bodies to warm up?" Yuzan asked with a glint in his eye and a grin on his lips.

"Uh . . . Fire? We can sit closer to it if you want," Azmir said.

Yuzan chuckled.

"I have a better idea," Yuzan said.

He placed the tip of his finger under Azmir's chin.

"Mir, let's get inside the sleeping bag."