Chapter 235: Respecting yourself is just as important as respecting others
The water was cold. And I mean ice cold, even though it was definitely not frosting. The cold was seeping through my clothes and spreading on my skin, so even my dry upper body shuddered from it.
And I was saying this as someone who was contracted to a Salamander.
And no, I didn’t feel the effect of our contract got severed. I still could feel the magic fighting this cold from within, so I wondered what it would be like if I didn’t have that contract with Ignis.
I was so going to buy him fire elemental stones.
And it wasn’t just the temperature that attacked me. You know how we would run and try to move faster in general when it was cold? Yeah...I couldn’t do that.
It was after I walked for two meters, I think? When the water came up to my thigh, and it was so cold I was clattering and wanted to run across so badly, but I felt like walking through a really thick mudfield.
Obviously, I had never run through a mudfield before, but Valmeier had, and it was almost like that, only harder. The lake water was still water though, clear and transparent. But it felt like I had a magnet for shoes, and I walked on top of an iron bed. My steps got halted a lot, and I almost stumbled when I tried to forcefully pull my legs from the bottom.
So I stopped and took a deep breath. Yeah, this was a trial, wasn’t it? It was a test, so of course it wouldn’t be easy.
Immediately after, I ran my mana through my circuits, my whole body. Especially, I pooled the mana on my legs, circulating them faster and faster there which got so much easier now that my gate was completely unblocked. Thanks to that, my legs felt much lighter. Now it was no longer like walking on a bed of iron using magnetic shoes, but just walking on a muddy field--not a thick mudfield, just a swamp or something similar.
But after a few steps of walking with this lighter and slightly triumphant feeling, the cold that had been spreading all over my skin suddenly pricked my bone. That was the only explanation I could give because the prickling came out of nowhere, and I had to bite my lips so I didn’t let out any sounds. I didn’t want to make Natha and Jade worry, and I didn’t want to give those old demons the satisfaction of seeing me struggle.
So I gritted my teeth and walked forward. This was nothing--just this kind of prickling pain? It was just like getting pierced by injection needles all over my body. My heart was fine, my internal organs were still working perfectly, so it wasn’t even as painful as what I was used to.