Chapter 501: Frozen Nest’s Blizzard.
[“Mom lives inside a mine?”]
[“The mines where the evernight ice stones reside are created by a perpetual blizzard that encases its depth all year long,”] Shay explained. [“It isn’t the same blizzard caused by Thalaxarus’s remains protecting the island, but rather something indigenous to Frozen Nest itself. The sheer cold is part of this place, and has always been a danger to even ice dragon whelps. Which is why I advised you to be careful.”]
… Hold on, was that blizzard story Shay and Beth told me actually that scary?
Following my desire to help Grimnir out by acquiring materials for armor to “withstand even the fiercest blizzards,” our party was currently enroute back home. Since Mom still had plenty of meetings to attend to catch up on her duties as an empress, I was currently carrying everybody on “Hestia Airlines,” since my rocket boosters were the most convenient option to cover the massive distance between Iceskale and Nordor Valley.
During this trip, Vifi also went into detail about her concerns, mentioning how I was not ready to brave the mines to get some of the ice stone. In a way, I couldn’t disagree, but then again, why should I take that lying down without challenging it first?
[“Your mother was planning on putting you through this test one way or the other,”] Vifi said. [“Either when you asked her for an item, wanted to train for your glacier expedition, or were curious about how our cryomancers are training.”]
Tasianna, Shay, and Beth were all Mom’s disciples and when they trained, they would go down to where Mom usually slept. The mansion where I stayed—my cavern, in other words—was placed on the highest floor so I could avoid the chill, which was why I didn’t know what exactly the cryomancers’ training involved.
Also, weirdly, I suddenly thought that Mom staying behind, instead of returning to her roosting location, was her subtle way of telling me that she wasn’t confident in my ability to make it through this blizzard. That was my frank conclusion about this, although I hoped it was just some useless thoughts.
Sure, approaching the entrance got real cold, but it can’t be that bad, right? [Battle Frenzy] and Symphonie should be enough heat to keep me warm.