Chapter 100

All is Cold But That Which Burns

“Huh...” Sylas exclaimed softly as he came to a halt, his eyes veering downward from the hill to the vast dip where a frozen river cut through the world. It seemed like a bridge connecting two opposing mountain ranges, and the divider between the frosted, dead plains and the now-leafless forest that lay beyond it.

It was a strange sight, to say the least. Though he’d seen frozen bodies of water, even smaller rivers to an extent, before, it was never quite on this scale as the river was hardly small, its width surpassing eight hundred feet even at the narrowest. Two banks were connected by a fast-deteriorating wooden bridge, but from what he learned, goods were carried by a magic-powered ferry during the warm days.

Looking around, he elected to move to a nearby rugged and jagged assortment of rocks that formed a quasi-roof of sorts to hide from the falling snow. Using his body heat to melt away the snow gathered beneath the ‘roof’, and then to vaporize the resulting water, he sat down and took a deep breath.

"It's already been two weeks, huh?" the progress... was much slower than he expected. Though he could ignore the ridiculously low temperatures deep at night, which sometimes fell into negative sixties, the terrain itself couldn't be ignored. Not only was the main road barely maintained, but more and more snow would also pile on top of it every new morning. It's gotten so bad that he couldn't even tell where the 'main road' is anymore and was just using the general 'moving south' directions, often coming across immensely angular slopes and rock formations like the one he was using as a shelter at the moment.

Using the firewood he’d managed to scrap over the past few days, he slowly started a fire and began cleaning some rabbit meat. At least, food wouldn’t spoil, he mused, in such awful temperatures.

Still, two weeks to just reach the Mori River was... slow. Painfully slow. He’d basically covered one-tenth of the distance from the Ethwar Castle to the nearest village in the south. The next obstacle was the forest that lay beyond the river that covered the remaining nine-tenths of the way. It was effectively cradled by two massive mountain ranges that seemed to not end no matter how far he looked, and though it’s lost its lushness due to the winter, it would still be quite difficult to traverse.

Furthermore, there were the issues of rations--he’d already started saving up on food and using the snow he’d melt as water for a few days now. Unsurprisingly, he was yet to encounter any animal, and even though he hadn’t gone into the mountainous regions, from what he understood, most animals would hibernate during the Cold Snap winters.

Unless he lucked out by randomly walking into a deer's den or something, he was likelier to starve than die from the cold. Even if he could go on far longer than a normal person could without water and food, there were still clear limits. Not to mention that the daily expenditure of energy was massively increased due to the fact that he had to trek through the thick layers of snow.

While the rabbit’s meat was getting roasted, he took out a jug of wine from one of the six backpacks he was carrying effortlessly. Rather than backpacks, they were more akin to rags he’d tied together to hold things together. Nonetheless, they served their function well enough so far. Surprisingly so, even.

The numb taste of wine slowly cradled his throat and made him wish for a bit more diversity. He’d gotten tired of it. Not only that, ever since he started training to become a ‘Bloodstone Knight’, he had been incapable of actually getting drunk. It was as though his blood burned the alcohol inside the liquid, treating it as poison.

“Admittedly, it is one,” he chuckled morbidly, taking yet another sip and stirring the flames. Looking out... he had to admit that the sight was one to behold. White spread as far as the eye could see, untouched, unblemished by mankind. It was a world breathing on its own, independent of the thoughts of men.

The perfect smoothness that made it difficult to discern where something began and where it ended seemed like a painting on a canvas, one airbrushed to all hell and back. The only indications were abrupt slopes, distant mountains, and the forest beyond the river.

“... I won’t be able to make it to the village,” he’d realized that a few days ago already. Though he could optimize the journey to a certain degree, it was impossible to actually cross the distance and arrive at the village before the spring--and that was assuming that he had means of securing enough rations to last him all the way through. “It won’t hurt to explore some, but...”

Sighing, he ran his fingers through his hair somewhat frustrated, looking around toward the distant edges where the mountains began rooting from the ground. The terrain was beyond inhospitable. From his perspective, the castle’s existence was, objectively, a pure case of stupidity--that is, if whoever built it didn’t have knowledge of what lay even further north.

It held no military value, as even the gods themselves would likely elect to invade from elsewhere. Even during the summer days, the temperature never went above low tens, and even without the snow, none of the land was arable, the castle itself was barely accessible, and it was a journey unto itself to resupply it every once in a while. It seemed more like a death row sentence rather than a place to live and a place to send Kingdom's limited soldiers.

The longer he lived here, the more did Sylas realize that the castle's very existence was the nail in the coffin when it came to the world knowing of the City of the Dead. It was there before, he knew--the city. And the castle, rather than a line of defense, likely served the role of an outpost--an early warning. They were simply supposed to hold out for a little while until the main army was notified and sent to defend.

Looking at the untouched landscape around him, he sighed yet again; he never felt more isolated. Even if he knew that a simple nick of a knife into his neck would have him back within the 'civilization' immediately, it still didn't diminish the fact that he was... alone. A sole soul adrift the sublime nature doused in white powder, the mountains' summits peaking toward the clouds like stately blades. He was animate among the inanimate, yet felt more dead than the land around him.

It was a strange feeling, he mused further as he pulled the rabbit’s meat from the fire and cut it into several smaller chunks, to distinctly not belong. He didn’t belong to many places, but that mostly had to do with his psyche. In this case... no human belonged in the tapestry of delight, as the mere presence seemed to awash something ugly into the hallowed.

Biting into the meat, he felt lost for a moment. He was never a man of nature, detesting even the hikes through the park, yet even if he could experience something like this...

“Life is a marvel,” a familiar voice startled him.

“Death is a journey,” another one, slightly more immature, joined. Standing up and walking out of his tiny cover, he saw that two familiar figures were perched on top of his roof--the white doe and the black crow.

“... what’d you do to that guy?” he asked abruptly. “I had a lot of questions for him, you know.”

“We returned him.”

“Rescued him.”

“Appeased him.”

“Soothed him.”

“That’s great and all--but he was a cunt responsible for the death of many. Couldn’t you have let him suffer a bit more?”

“Anger though may fuel you,” the doe said. “It shall not save you. Walk these lands and be free. All is free.”

“Is all free, dear doe?” the crow asked.

“All is free, dearest crow,” the doe replied.

“Are we not free?” the crow asked.

“We are not free,” the doe replied.

“Why are we not free?”

“For we are not all.”

“What are we?”

“We are we.”

“We?”

“We, dearest crow,” the doe replied.

“We, dearest doe,” the two began to walk away, and though Sylas wanted to call out, he realized he couldn’t. Watching the white doe walk among the pearled, white shore, with a black crow on top of its head... mesmerized him.

“What binds us, dear doe?” their voices echoed.

“All binds us, dear crow,” they were like a song amidst the eternal silence.

“Can all unbind us, dear doe?”

“We are unbound, dearest crow,”

“We are?”

“If bound we were, we shall not walk among the stars.”

“What are stars, dearest doe?”

“Stars are gems alighting the lies,” the two paused at the edge of the river and turned their heads to the size, their piercing gazes meeting Sylas’ frosted eyes. “And those lies shall birth the fire that will unveil. All that is lost does not want to be found, and not all lies need be spoken into truths. Not all tears are the crystals of grief, and not all curses are born of hate.”

“Stars are beautiful, dear doe,” the crow said.

“Stars are ephemeral, dear crow,” the doe said.

“What does ephemeral mean, dearest doe?”

“That which we are not, dearest crow.”

“And what is that which we are?”

“Only us, dear crow.”

“It is lonely, dearest doe.”

“What does loneliness feel like, dear crow?”

“Like a night’s sky without any stars...”

Sylas didn’t realize how or when did they vanish, only that their voices disappeared and with them their figures that just a second ago stood by the river. Twice now, he’d met them, and twice now he couldn’t figure out anything. Were they spirits? Ghosts? Gods? Some servants of the system sent to give him cryptic hints? Or were they just tricksters trying to confuse him to cure some of their boredom?

“Why were they here anyway?” he frowned. “No, pointless to think about it. If I can’t even tell what they are, how the fuck should I know what they’re doing?”

“Who’s doing what?” SERIOUSLY?!! turning to the side, Sylas looked at the source of the voice and nearly stumbled--another strange creature, though, admittedly, this one was at least a human. I... I think she’s a human?

The woman who seemed to be in her mid-twenties had hair as white as snow and as long as half her body, and was wearing casual clothes that wouldn't protect against the slightest winds, let alone this kind of winter. Right, another magical thing I gotta keep track of. Why the hell not...