Chapter 9 – Cold Breeze

A howling gale struck me out of the blue, halting me in my tracks. Instead of trying to evade the gale, I basked in it. I lifted my arms up and started turning around. Ingenious, if I do say so myself. Though I was currently just drying myself off from dashing through a damn waterfall, twice, I didn’t stop for that reason alone. The wind was irregular, and had to originate somewhere…

I decisively ran against the gale, and made my way off the path and deep into the woods once again. The freely grown wildlife and densely grown trees, along with the intense headwind that blew through the thicket, made progressing towards the source of the abnormal energy time consuming, to say the least.

Just as I was about to give up from being annoyed of cleaving tree branches with my blade. I had finally made my way out of the thicket, greeted by the howling gale blasting against me in full force. On the other side, up above, a giant nest laid on the edge of a cliff overlooking the forest below. A bird of monstrous stature circled around the nest far up in the air.

【Gale Vulture – Affinity: Air – Rank: Usual – Rarity: A】

Among the countless Usual-Rank monsters, the Gale Vulture seemed to be in a league of its own. Its adept affinity with the air element and a monstrous wingspan of near five meters made it a formidable foe to the most experienced of fighters. Standing proudly at A-Rarity, It was probably no less dangerous than a group of lower rarity monsters of a higher rank. I hope...

As I emerged from the forest below, I alerted the vigilant beast near instantly. We locked eyes, but I tried not to show any signs of interest. I could feel the vulture keeping a close eye on my every move, even if it didn’t take any aggressive actions.

I started scaling the sloped rock wall towards the nest of the giant vulture. Though the height was no more than a couple of meters, I could still feel an imminent sense of danger that held me tightly within its iron fist. To think that an Usual-Rank monster would ignite such fear within me… I swallowed and continued my climb.

Finding footholds on the rocky incline proved surprisingly easy. It was as if it had been made to be scaled. Though my steps, for one reason or another, felt a tenfold lighter while running and I could sprint full speed ahead for as long as I liked, under the burden of the gale vulture’s pressure, climbing quickly became exhausting, as my spirit wavered. Despite that, I pressed on. I couldn’t rest now.

When I finally found myself at the top of the cliff, the gale vulture descended down from the skies in front of its nest. However, before it had landed, among the numerous eggs in its nest, I noticed a rather peculiar specimen. A grey sphere emitting a colorless faint glow. It was unmistakably the Elemental Manastone of Air. I tried to approach the nest but to no result. The defense of the vulture was impenetrable.

The Gale Vulture seemingly deemed my intentions as hostile. Hesitant, but aggravated, the vulture spread out its wings far and wide and slammed them against the ground behind it, propelling itself towards me at an incredibly high speed by vigorously kicking the ground and aided by the massive amounts of air it moved with its two giant wings.

I swiftly stepped sideways, barely dodging the rapidly approaching beast. As if reflexive, or perhaps on accident, when I dodged, the blade I brandished barely remained within the monster's range, resulting in me clipping the left wing of the giant vulture, as it dashed past me. After it lost control and found itself unable to stop, the vulture crashed against the trees behind me. Whether the cracking sound originated from the bones of the beast, or the shattering trees, remained unclear.

Instead of finishing the vulture off, I dashed towards the giant vulture’s nest.

My efforts, or rather, accidental success was rewarded, as in the middle of the nest among the eggs, I found the pretty bleak stone, that glistened in various shades of grey. As I extended my hand to grab it, I could feel the current around the stone swirling around aimlessly. I had now found my fourth Elemental Manastone. The Elemental Manastone of Air.

›Find: 4/1

I took one last look at the Gale Vulture with eyes filled with sorrow, I didn’t want to hurt it, so I felt guilty, but I had a goal to accomplish and it stood in my way, threatening my life, so it’s not like I had a choice. I hope that regeneration from such an injury wouldn’t be impossible for such a beast. Anyhow, I should make my escape while I still can.

After recovering from the crash, the vulture waddled towards its nest. Relief overran the vulture as it didn’t find its nest ransacked and destroyed as it had feared. In fact, the nest, along with its contents was still perfectly intact, apart from a glowing grey stone the vulture had collected. The grey stone meant little to the vulture compared to the eggs it was trying to protect. As the vulture looked down from the cliff, the dark figure was nowhere to be seen.

›Subjugate: 9/5

Once again, I emerged from the woods, back to the forest path. And was once again, I found myself on the run. For how long am I going to have to run along the trail? I don't even want to think about it. Distracting myself from the mundane task of advancing, I started to get curious about something.

Since one seemed to be able to find Elemental Manastones of every element, it would only make sense for Elemental Stones of elements rarely found in nature, such as Ice, Fire, and Thunder to exist somewhere. Considering the nature of the surrounding area, finding stones of said elements would prove difficult, if not impossible...

...Or so I thought until I was met with freezing cold air lingering from close by. The Trail seemed more and more artificial by the minute. Please consider hiring a new level designer!

Before long, I had located the origin of the cold air. Before me stood an ice-covered entrance to a thoroughly frozen, dimly lit cavern. I didn’t mind a cool breeze, but I definitely wouldn’t dash deep into a freezer with my current attire out of free will, however, it’s too late to give up on my quest now!

I took a deep breath and charged inside. It felt like the middle of a hailstorm, as snow vigorously danced about in the cave, obstructing my view near completely. Not only was my vision obstructed, but the countless reflections bouncing from the icicles hanging from the ceiling and growing from the floor made it impossible to find the Manastone that likely laid somewhere in the cave.

I steeled onward in the cramped icy cave, kicking the snow out of the way, though I had to be careful as not to cause the icicles above fall down and impale my feeble body. To my dismay, that was all for naught. Walking on snow-covered ice is dangerous. The snow gives one a false sense of grip, yet as soon as the snow beneath your feet is gone, the slippery ice will work its treacherous magic.

I lost my balance as I started to slide. While trying to desperately regain my footing, I hit an icicle growing from the ground, which completely eradicated the traces of balance that still kept me standing on my two feet. As a result, I managed to fall down on my ass in the most glorious fashion imaginable.

My fall was swiftly followed by a low rumble. This isn’t good…

I got up as quickly as humanly possible and tried to flail my way away from my impending doom. My stumble had set off a chain reaction of freezing death. The icicles started to fall down one after another.

The horror of having to escape from giant falling icicles, while running on ice without knowing whether or not your balance will hold was something I never thought how badly I didn't want to experience. Yet here I was, running for my life with my tail between my legs.

The glacial mass falling from above was trailing close behind, with each falling chunk, triggering the fall of two chunks more. I desperately dashed forwards and finally found refuge under a giant pillar of ice, deeply rooted into both the ground and the ceiling.

As the rumbling sound created by the falling icicles grew more and more distant, the snowstorm seemed to calm down too. I took a deep breath and started to examine my surroundings. Despite the extremely cold conditions, I felt no such thing as my mind was overflowing with a sense of excitement and danger.

It didn’t take more than a hundred and eighty degrees of rotation for me to finally find what I was after. The Elemental Manastone of Ice… Only it was stuck deep within the pillar of ice. As the danger of the falling icicles had gone, the feeling of immense cold also started to set in. This is certainly an unpleasant situation to be in, to say the least.

Chipping the ice around it would be a pain, and the pillar was way too thick to break with ease. That wasn’t enough to dishearten me, though.

I tried slashing the pillar with my blade. Though the cuts didn't cleave the pillar in half, they were deep enough. Good.

Rather than chopping at the same location as one would while felling a tree, the similarly slanted slashes were directed at multiple locations along the length of the pillar.

After a good while of slashing, I took distance from the damaged pillar. The light emitting from the Manastone found it’s way out of the pillar from the slits running across. It was as if the glacial structure was about to burst. Admiring the sight, I dug my feet between the rocks on the cold, icy surface of the cave and charged towards the pillar.

Rather than bursting through and breaking the pillar, it only cracked a bit. I cursed to myself, but it seems that my plan wasn’t for naught, as with the next tackle, I fell the frozen column, breaking it into bits fine as snow.

›Find: 5/1

Elemental Manastone of Ice, GET! After I had accomplished my goal, I quickly came to realize that I could not handle the cold for a moment longer and dashed out of the frozen cave as fast as I possibly could.

I started to question whether or not it was a good idea to decide to collect all the Manastones, as when I found myself on the path once again, I really began to feel like a broken record.

Before I even managed to recollect myself and warm up after the icy cold dungeon delving, much unlike previous times, when I had to listen to water dripping down or feel the wind blowing against my skin to find where the Manastones might be, the location of the next one was nothing short of obvious.

Up ahead, the sky was painted grey and crimson. A forest fire…