Chapter 93
Chapter 93
Sacred Mountain Range (3)
“Ugh. It’s cold.”
After getting off the train, Winter kept rubbing her arms. It was a cold that couldn’t even be compared to Museion Island, which leaned toward the warmer side.
“Let’s change clothes.”
Other than the Duhein Family’s Extermination Unit coming to find me, nothing much had happened. I had mostly lazed around, and Winter used the spare time to study.
At my words, Winter quickly pulled out a thick jumper from her backpack.
“This is ‘Nineprio.’”
Winter looked around at the completely snow-white surroundings in admiration. After arriving at the city called ‘Nineprio,’ we headed to an inn first.
A strange city where snow piled up even in summer. Faced with the rare scenery created by the snow, Winter couldn’t stay still for even a moment.
“Get a good rest today. We’re heading to the holy land tomorrow right away.”
Only then did Winter come to her senses and head toward the room assigned to her. I roughly unpacked and sat on the first floor, and before long, Winter came down.
“Is it okay if I leave my luggage like this?”
“Yeah. Just buy some winter gear and crampons.”
Since I was a bit hungry, I ordered some food as well. I figured we might as well have an early dinner.
Winter, who followed me in ordering food, asked if we needed to prepare anything else.
“This.”
“What is it?”
“Priest Dike said you might need it, so he wrote it down.”
Winter handed me a small piece of paper from her belongings. The neatly folded paper had long, tidy handwriting on it.
“Who’s Dike?”
“……Priest Karata. That incredibly handsome blond man we met at the auction house.”
“Ahh. My junior.”
Ignoring Winter’s deadpan stare, I read the list. Most of it consisted of things we already had.
Dike had even kindly written brief explanations of why each item was needed.
“What are you planning to do when we get to the holy land?”
“First, Eye of Aira, two of them.”
Seeing me carefully reading the list, Winter asked with a pleased smile.
I shrugged and answered casually. The first thing we needed was the Eye of Aira. It was an item Bereninche had taken on commission in the past.
“Two of them?”
“Aren’t we going to make Holy Water?”
“Ah….”
Winter, who knew about my deal with Bereninche, asked back. Only after hearing my answer did she nod.
The Eye of Aira was an artifact that could only be obtained from the Holy Scripture.
It wasn’t difficult to acquire, but it required qualifications, so it was rare. It was usually used to make Holy Water.
“It’d be nice to have Holy Water too.”
The Anaye Order wasn’t specialized in healing, so it wasn’t overwhelmingly powerful, but it was useful to have and use from time to time.
“And after that?”
“We should also try the ‘trial’ once.”
At the mention of a trial, Winter nodded heavily.
It was the advanced class advancement commonly associated with religious characters. Similar to what I had gone through at the ash tree, if a paladin advanced there, a priest would do so here.
“You’ll definitely pass.”
“……Yes!”
As practically the only priest, it was a test Winter absolutely had to take. At my words, she smiled confidently.
“Since we’re going up anyway, we can do some sightseeing. There’s also an amazing place for prayer, so we should pray a bit too.”
“Prayer sounds great. It’s the foundation of every religion.”
At the mention of a famous prayer spot, Winter seemed excited. In reality, she was the only one who prayed regularly.
Worden still didn’t really have that concept ingrained, and I only prayed when necessary.
“Ugh.”
The moment I had an impure thought, the Holy Scripture appeared above my head. The thick book struck my head with its full weight.
It was honestly impressive how Anaye caught things like this so precisely. Winter welcomed the Holy Scripture, which had appeared after a while.
“Here.”
“Thank you!”
I handed it over willingly. Winter carefully received the Holy Scripture and stroked it with affection.
As soon as Winter took it, the Holy Brush that had been with her appeared as well. It emerged along her hand, spotted the Holy Scripture, and began acting cute.
“Oh.”
“Hm.”
Seeing the Holy Brush acting coquettishly toward the Holy Scripture, Winter smiled with satisfaction.
I was staring at it, thinking it was oddly cute for an object, when suddenly the Holy Scripture snapped open violently and smacked the Holy Brush away.
“……It got rejected?”
“Uh, well. It’s… an object……”
I quickly snatched the Holy Brush that had been thrown aside powerlessly. In my hand, it curled up pitifully like a crying snake.
At my bewildered remark, Winter let out a dumbfounded sound. As if nothing had happened, the Holy Scripture gently opened itself toward Winter again.
“Of all the—ha… ugh!”
As I made a comment while looking at the Holy Scripture, which seemed oddly sulky at a glance, it suddenly leapt up.
It was so fast that I almost got slapped across the face.
“Let’s just eat.”
Right on time, the food arrived, and the Holy Scripture calmed down. More precisely, it calmed down because of the beer that came with the food.
I let out a deep sigh and poured the beer into a wide plate. Watching the Holy Scripture immediately plunge itself in, Winter picked up her utensils with hollow eyes.
“I’ll go buy what we need.”
After finishing the early dinner like that, I stood up right away.
No matter how good the train facilities were, they couldn’t compare to a proper bed. I planned to quickly buy what we needed and get some rest.
“Ah. I’ll go with you too.”
Winter quickly finished what remained and stood up as well. When we stepped outside, despite the falling snow, the sky was clear.
“The weather’s nice.”
“Yeah. If we’re lucky, we might even see an aurora.”
At the mention of an aurora, Winter’s face lit up with genuine joy. In this world, magic and nature were deeply intertwined.
What people called natural phenomena often had significant effects on magic. Among them, the aurora was an especially mysterious phenomenon.
“Ah, I hope we get to see it.”
“The chances are low, though.”
Winter pouted slightly at my unnecessary addition of a negative remark.
“Crampons.”
“I’ve put them on.”
Behind Nineprio lay a massive mountain range. It stretched endlessly across the horizon, its peak hidden behind harsh snow clouds.
At the entrance set up at the base of the mountains, we did one final equipment check.
“We’ve got plenty of dry rations. Water’s fine too.”
“Your clothes. It’ll get colder than this.”
There wasn’t even a breeze right now, but if we climbed just a bit higher, fierce snowstorms would start raging.
I could endure it, but Winter, whose physical abilities were comparatively weaker, couldn’t. Even if it felt a bit warm now, it was better to start fully prepared.
“Hmm. Just a moment.”
Thinking it was better to be thorough, Winter took out two scarves from her backpack.
She wrapped the red one around her own neck and handed me the blue one.
“Here. Honestly, I think your outfit is too light.”
I accepted it without complaint. As she said, my clothing was much lighter in comparison.
Since I had to carry more and possessed an Adaptive Body, I opted for lighter attire that would be more helpful in combat.
“Honestly, I doubt there’ll be any combat.”
At her words, I shook my head. At first, I had thought the same.
What kind of monsters would live in such a harsh environment? Would there even be anything dangerous? But I quickly brushed off that thought.
“Is the Poison Swamp a comfortable place to live?”
“Oh. True.”
Winter quickly agreed. In the Swamp of Gehenna, known as the Poison Swamp, a wide variety of creatures thrived.
If they could adapt to that level of poison, why wouldn’t they adapt to this kind of cold? Leaving the nodding Winter behind, I moved forward first.
“Ah! Wait for me!”
Winter hurried after me as I set off without hesitation. Perhaps out of caution, she stayed much closer to me than usual.
“It’s heavy.”
“If you think you can’t carry it, say so. I’ll carry it.”
Winter adjusted the now much fuller backpack on her shoulders and shook her head. There was a determined look on her face.
“I can’t do that.”
“Admirable.”
With a faint chuckle, I moved my heavy steps forward. I pushed through snow that barely covered my ankles.
Dragging my feet, I created a path ahead. With my body in good condition, it wasn’t particularly difficult.
“If anything feels off, tell me right away.”
“Something off? Ah. Divine Power.”
Winter immediately understood my intention. The gradually fading Divine Power. The sense of loss that came with it.
Her expression hardened as she took out Silent Bell. She skillfully tied Silent Bell to the buckle of her backpack.
“This feels much better.”
Every time Winter moved, the faint ringing of Silent Bell brought calmness to both body and mind.
Thinking it was quite a good idea, I continued forward in silence. Many people had died during pilgrimages to the holy land.
“Are you okay without Divine Power, senior? Or is it different since you’re an Apostle?”
“Who knows.”
Among them, 50% couldn’t endure the sense of loss caused by the depletion of Divine Power and ended up taking their own lives.
The remaining 45% froze to death due to the cold. At Winter’s question, I shrugged. From my perspective, as long as we had Silent Bell, there was no need to worry about dying.
“There won’t be much difference. Still, all of Anaye’s skills consume stamina, so that part will be a bit different.”
“That’s true.”
It was common knowledge that most religious classes used Divine Power like mana.
In fact, among researchers, some insisted Divine Power was simply another form of mana, even if it belonged to a different domain.
“It might be pretty tough. For you, I mean.”
“Huh?”
Humans in this world had biological mana flowing through them like bioelectricity. I had experienced the loss of it, even if only briefly.
The mana I paid as the price for obtaining an Adaptive Body. The sense of loss it brought was indescribable.
‘If things had gone wrong, it might’ve been dangerous.’
If it hadn’t been for that deep sense of fulfillment that filled me in place of the mana, it might really have been dangerous. I cut off the stray thought.
It hadn’t happened anyway. There was no need to dwell on it.
“All hail Silent Bell.”
“Seriously.”
The weather began to worsen in an instant. The manageable snowfall had turned into a blizzard before I knew it. My body grew heavier and heavier.
The irritation that naturally crept up was completely swept away by a single chime of Silent Bell. I couldn’t help but be impressed.
“How much farther to the first shelter?”
At Winter’s question, I stopped and pulled out the map I had stuffed in my pants pocket. It was the mountain range map we bought yesterday.
“About one or two hours of walking.”
“Oh….”
There were a total of three shelters on the way to the entrance of the holy land. They were refuges built by people as casualties kept increasing.
Each one had facilities to block out the blizzard and fend off the cold. We had agreed to spend a night at each shelter.
“Two hours is still early. Should we go to the next shelter instead?”
“No.”
Winter, who had been keeping up well, offered her opinion, but I shook my head. Night in the mountains came quickly.
“Safety comes first. We’ve got plenty of time anyway.”
“That’s true.”
Winter accepted it without much resistance, tempering what might have been close to overconfidence.
“Ah. Senior.”
“What?”
“They say there might be an ancient temple in this mountain range.”
Perhaps bored from walking in silence for so long, Winter brought up something she knew.
Seeing that she still wasn’t out of breath, I realized just how intense Bereninche’s physical training must have been.
“A temple?”
“Yes. Isn’t it fascinating? Apparently it’s from an ancient religion.”
It was an interesting topic. The ancient religion Winter mentioned—something from before the current seven major religions.
“The Thousand Gods and the Earth Mother?”
“Yes. In the ancient origin religion, they only believed in those two. There are even stories that the beings born from those two are the current seven gods.”
Since my goal had been to clear the game, I hadn’t paid much attention to this kind of worldbuilding.
If I’d known I’d end up here, I would’ve studied it thoroughly. It was also a bit of a regret that I had ignored mage-type characters, insisting men should be warriors.
“Of course, warriors are the best.”
“Uh, Senior.”
That didn’t mean mages were good, though.
Winter snapped me out of my stray thoughts. When I turned at the tapping on my backpack, I saw her staring intently to the right.
“What is it?”
“Isn’t that a winter fox?”
I followed where she pointed. A fox peeked its head out over the snow.
“What is that?”
Like an arctic fox from Earth, the winter fox had white fur. And its ears were very large.
But the fox Winter was pointing at was a little different. Its ears were indeed big, but its white fur had a strange pink tint mixed in.
“Well, well.”
The fox slowly approached us. Its eyes were tinged red, and it had two tails.
I knew exactly what that fox was. Without any fear, Winter reached out her hand toward it.
“Wow. It’s really affectionate, Senior.”
“…….”
I squeezed my eyes shut. The fox’s true identity was a person. More precisely, another race.
The Shaman of the Far East, the fox shrine maiden, Aro. She had appeared on the pilgrimage path in the form of a fox.