Chapter 55

Chapter 55 : Even Artisans Are Selective About Their Tools (6)

As we went farther inside, listening to a cheerfulness that was tolerable enough, the ceiling disappeared completely and a mansion surrounded by glittering sculptures was revealed.

The path we had passed through had been a kind of tunnel and gateway leading here.

Meanwhile, Murel, who had roughly tossed aside the half-thawed Hwipone, stood before the unfolding snowy landscape and spread both arms wide to welcome me.

“It is humble, but I can say with pride that it is more beautiful than any place.”

There was even pride on his face.

It was true that I was slightly surprised by the unexpected view too.

Since that place was probably the former Sky’s Domain, and among it, the place where the Ruler had stayed, everywhere I looked was a superb view.

The blizzard no longer raged, so the crystals of the white accumulated snow took in the sunlight and glittered, and the trees with white snow blossoms blooming on them looked as though they would scatter clear notes if touched.

“Whyyy is heee the one braaagging about it!”

His mouth was half-frozen, so he could not even properly say that he did not understand why that bastard was boasting, and Hwipone groaned as he glared at me.

It was understandable that he would be angry. This had been their old homeland.

“It is pretty.”

I gave a brief comment on the scenery, then asked Murel what we should do about Hwipone’s frozen body.

It was difficult to keep watching Hwipone, who used ice as his ability, being dragged around without being able to resolve his own body freezing.

“Why are you looking at me so pathetically? What is your relationship with that bastard!”

I roughly ignored the mouth that had thawed enough to chatter in the meantime.

Even though his body was frozen, his ears were open, so Hwipone had heard Murel’s rambling alongside me. He was simply the one who had let most of it pass in his own indignation.

“This bird bastard’s way of speaking to My Lord is filthy. May I simply kill him?”

“No. He is my companion.”

On one side was Hwipone, shouting in excitement, and on the other was Murel, wagging his tail while asking whether he should kill the prey and bring it over or bring it alive.

I had to suffer between the two of them.

If this is the trial of one who has become a Supporting Role, I will gladly accept it, you system bastard.

I inwardly cursed at the system, which was still missing, and tore at my aching head.

It is all my karma.

“Is there no way to thaw his body?”

After barely separating the two as they bickered, I asked Murel.

Since Murel had been the one to send Hwipone away and bring him back, I wondered if he had some way to resolve it.

“That did not simply freeze from the cold. It requires the Power of Phantasm.”

“Explain.”

As the thoroughly frozen Hwipone thawed slowly, ice pieces were falling from the surface as though his skin were peeling.

At my request, Murel stared hard at Hwipone’s condition, then opened his mouth as though he had given up.

“It is a curse. Once afflicted, it freezes even the soul, gradually hardening until even the soul shatters and leads to death―.”

“―A curse? This is the curse they say spread during the Great Incident?”

Hwipone, who had been listening quietly beside us, recognized the word curse and cut in.

The Great Incident, the cursed land, and a curse that froze even the soul.

So the curse spread throughout Sky’s Domain was this curse?

Hwipone, flustered because it was his problem, cut off Murel’s words. Then he took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut.

“It is not an ordinary curse. Just as poison has an antidote suited to it, this curse likewise has a compatible release.”

I jerked my chin at Murel and asked whether Hwipone was right.

Murel looked gloomy, as though asking why I listened only to that man’s words when he had been the one explaining, then brightened and rattled off the method.

“The bird bastard is correct. Only by basking in the warmth of The Hottest Flame That Blooms in the Coldest Place can he fully return to his original state.”

This was that thing.

The reason I had tried to come here.

After learning that Murel was a Creator, I had naturally assumed he would explain the production method for Phantasmal Species from its form onward.

I had dismissed the mysterious phrase that had been passed down, and the flame I had seen in the mural on the wall of the Ruler of the Sky’s office, as merely legends.

Yet the “flame” had appeared in an unexpected way.

“That flame, by any chance…….”

I was about to ask whether it was the production method for Phantasmal Species, but then I felt Hwipone’s gaze and shut my mouth.

Was that flame not the very flame that had been passed down in Sky’s Domain for a long time? It was a longing they had wanted to recover even in later generations, enough that they had torn out an entire mural and carried it away when they migrated.

If I told them that the flame might actually be the production method for creating Phantasmal Species, I could not predict what sort of disaster would occur. It was a separate issue from whether I trusted Hwipone or not.

If it became known that the truth behind the legend Sky’s Domain had carefully hidden away was connected to Phantasmal Species, Etel might immediately draw her sword and come to cut off my head.

“Then since we cannot thaw this lump of ice right away, we need to carry him and move.”

“You mean me?”

“Should I do it?”

“I cannot put my hands on a bird bastard’s body! No, a bird bastard touching my body is even more horrifying!”

Leaving the horrified Murel aside, I calmly lifted Hwipone.

The mansion, which looked quite similar to the Ice Castle I had seen in the second domain, did not seem farther than expected.

That was fortunate.

A situation where I had to struggle because it was too far, then simply throw him down in the snow and leave him there, would not happen.

Since one of his legs had thawed enough to move to some extent, it was manageable when I put an arm around his shoulders and supported him.

“U-um, mm, hoo…… ah, I…….”

When Murel actually saw me supporting Hwipone, he widened his eyes, then drew his brows together, then glared at Hwipone, growing restless.

“You are distracting me, so lead the way first.”

And so, walking with splendid snow sculptures on either side and Hwipone half-supported, while receiving Murel’s sharp glare again and again—

I sighed and struggled with whether to throw Hwipone, who kept chattering complaints, or not.

“Could you walk properly?”

“It is not moving the way I want, is it?”

“Then at least shut up?”

“……Tch.”

At least because Hwipone was ice attribute, he could move part of his body and speak. If it had been anyone else, they might have become a lump of ice and turned into one of the sculptures sprawled in the garden.

“Throw that half-witted bird into any corner. The curse will cling to My Lord’s body.”

“More importantly, tell me where the flame is.”

“……Taking him there is impossible.”

“I can go and bring it back, so just explain roughly.”

“In that…….”

“What?”

“Is he that precious to you? More than tea time with me after two hundred years?”

Murel abruptly turned around and came right up to me, his eyebrows twitching with a complicated, subtle expression as he said something strange.

I waved a hand, shoved Hwipone onto Murel, and rubbed my stiff shoulder.

“Tea time is with both of you.”

They both started protesting loudly at the same time, but I answered by picking at my ear instead.

What disgraceful behavior from fully grown adults.

“Hoo…… that flame is held in the mouth of an enormous statue halfway up that mountain.”

“Does that statue happen to have wings?”

“How did you know?”

“Horns?”

“It does!”

“Does it perhaps look like a giant reptile?”

“That is correct!”

So this time, it is a fire breath.

I felt as though a stress-induced stomachache was about to flare up. Holding my aching stomach, I looked up at the mountain Murel had pointed to.

There stood a snow mountain covered in pure white Perpetual Snow like some Himalaya, showing off its dignity and crushing my motivation.

“There is a path, right?”

“Of course.”

It did not take long to realize that the path Murel told me about was not a normal one.

Nor did it take long to realize that my physical condition was a mess.

---

Murel threw me a large bag, saying I would need various things.

If only I had proper mountaineering clothes, I would have looked like someone climbing the Himalayas. Unfortunately, all I had was the fur clothing of some beast I had worn when I came and part of the scarf the Ruling Phantasmal Species guarding Gorong had been knitting, which I had stolen.

‘Mountain climbing in this state, on a snow mountain.’

Hwipone looked at my appearance and cast something like a buff on me, telling me to come back alive, but it had almost no effect.

“My Lord, if you abandon me and leave alone again like this, I will be disappointed.”

“Do not kill him while I am gone.”

Murel flinched, then laughed, saying what on earth was I talking about. Meanwhile, I looked back at Hwipone, whose one eye, shoulder, chest, one leg, and one arm were still stiff.

He seemed to feel guilty, perhaps thinking I was leaving to obtain the flame because of him, but what he did not know would not hurt him.

I had no intention of bringing back the flame and handing everything over to Hwipone—or rather, to the sky.

“An outside intruder may cross over, so keep watch for that.”

“Do you truly think it is Karon?”

At Hwipone’s question, I shook my head.

“Would it not be strange no matter which side the intruder is from?”

It had been Pan who told me about the flame. If Pan had come here, then I judged it must have been at a point when I did not exist.

There was a high chance that the crow-tit and the map Sek had left behind never found their owner, and that he set out to find the flame himself.

Especially since that would have been after he had ruined the negotiations, perhaps he had needed an outlet for his anger.

In that case, in this moment when the Original Work was being revised, would Karon not make more sense? Besides, he had been searching for Sek’s traces.

In any case, I had no time to explain to Hwipone about the Original Work and Branching Points, so I hoped he would bury that question.

“The direction where we do not run into him as much as possible will be less troublesome. I will return before that, but since there is always the chance of something happening, I am telling you in advance. Murel, pack your things too.”

“Yes, My Lord. You need not worry about the intruder. I will burn this body to ash and execute them, whoever they are.”

That is the biggest problem.

I could not predict what would happen if Karon and Murel met.

No matter how deep his loyalty toward Sek was, the current Underworld Lord was Karon. Since I could not predict what method he might use, my mind would be calmer if the meeting itself never happened.

“Do not fight each other either.”

I shrugged, waved a hand, and walked along the mountain trail he had told me about.

After shoving Hwipone into a corner and asking Murel various things, I learned that the production method was a kind of guiding.

Just as a design plan existed when making a doll, the production method contained the information that determined the overall form.

However, a separate ability was needed to acquire that information.

The reason I stopped Murel, who was trying to explain somehow with hand gestures and body language, was because I thought that must be the Skill obtained through the quest reward.

Ah, I did hear a few words of warning.

“Must you bring back the flame?”

“Why?”

“If you are careless, the balance will collapse. This world is not made only of pleasant and happy memories.”

“What happens if the balance collapses?”

“The hidden beings will awaken. To reclaim the glory of the past.”

“The sovereigns.”

“……If My Lord wishes it, all will be as you desire.”

It was information that Sek had apparently given him.

Murel might truly have been one of Sek’s closest confidants. Considering that he had joined Sek’s plan and guarded this place for two hundred years, that seemed clear enough.

In any case, I thought deeply about whether Sek’s plan did not include the situation I was currently in, then stopped.

I looked up at the sheer ice cliff and sighed.

It would have been nice to have Hwipone’s wings, but even if he had not been frozen, I could not have brought him along. Items are best enjoyed when monopolized, you see.

Smacking my lips with regret, I opened the bag he had given me.

Because I had brought it as it was thrown to me, I had not properly checked what was inside. Only after rummaging through it for quite some time did I find the things I needed.

There is nothing that cannot be done. If you do it, it all works out.

―Those were the words I hated most, and now it seemed I was the one who had to live by them.