The path down was truly terrible.
There might not be any carts coming behind him, but the carts that occasionally passed right above his head and beside him were terrifying.
He could hear the sound of air being torn right next to his ear.
It was like having a 5-ton truck pass just 4cm away from him.
Still, he thought he was going well enough, but halfway through, a path suddenly appeared that bent 80 degrees downward, and as he rode down...
He ended up falling.
Before even discussing whether he had crossed safely or not, it beca a question of whether he could recover his body here.
Just before he could see sothing like ground below, he shut his eyes tight.
Even soone like him didn't have the confidence to keep his eyes open until the mont of death.
But then,
"Aaaaah!"
Instead of his whole body hitting hard ground, he felt a terrible pain in his right shoulder and wrist, which had landed first.
But it didn't end there.
His body, after hitting once, bounced and tumbled down several tis.
During that ti, unknown things clawed at his face and legs.
Only when his rcilessly rolling body stopped could he lift his head.
Tears that had been welling up flowed down from one eye.
As if his body wasn't already feeling shattered from rolling when he fell from the cart earlier!
What kind of luxurious life was he supposed to be living at this age!
"Damn it, my arm... Aaaaargh!"
The mont he touched his right arm while groaning, he scread involuntarily.
A fracture. It must be at least a fracture.
It couldn't possibly be intact when it hurt this much!
As he barely managed to stand up while sniffling his nose in an unsightly manner, his limp right arm and right shoulder scread in pain.
Because of that, he wanted to sit back down, but he barely endured.
Tears were flowing, his head was spinning, his whole body was in pain, and his arm was in even more pain.
Moreover, it was bitterly cold here.
The floor had no ice, but it was hard, completely frozen.
Since entering the mine, even with his cloak torn away, he had been able to endure reasonably well, perhaps because it blocked the wind blowing from outside.
But now it was so cold that even ten layers of cloaks would not be enough.
And up there, where he had just tumbled down from...
"...What is this?"
The faint light embedded in the pillars of the structure illuminated the surroundings.
He had thought the place he had just tumbled down from was a waste site or a garbage dump for the mine workers.
But his thought was wrong.
There were people lying in what had been a "garbage dump."
Strictly speaking, they weren't humans.
Sothing with a dog's face, goat's legs, and long, sharp nails couldn't possibly be human.
But if such things were piled up, over and over, forming a small hill.
If what had scratched him were protruding hands, and what had supported him were their bodies.
A mountain of corpses, frozen and emptily piled.
A stench that seed to have been stagnant for thousands of years seeped out from them.
"Ugh."
As soon as he backed up a few steps, an intense urge to vomit surged up.
Why were these things here?
Were these the demonic beasts that had been crying in the tunnel?
But why were they all dead?
Could it be that Yurik had co here and...
The mont that thought occurred to him, he couldn't hold back and vomited everything inside him.
He vomited and vomited until nothing ca out.
After coughing and spitting everything out, he sank to the ground, exhausted.
Cold, slly, dizzy, painful, tough, he felt like he was going to lose his mind.
Even if he wanted to hug himself, it was impossible with his dangling arm.
In the end, as he was trying to steady his breathing to avoid falling into panic while sitting with his knees up, it happened.
[Have you seen ?]
A chilling voice was heard.
But there was nothing here.
Surprised, he exhaled, and his breath froze white and disappeared into the air.
"Who's there?"
[Have you seen ?]
"Who's there?"
[Look at . Co up and look at with your insignificant eyes.]
Co up?
He looked at the hill of corpses.
Though it was so vividly real that it was disgusting, he crawled up onto the frozen bodies as the voice guided.
[Look at .]
It grew colder as he climbed.
No, rather than cold, it started to hurt now.
He could see white frost climbing up his bangs covering his forehead.
With just one hand, he barely made his way up the hill of corpses, but there was nothing there.
[Look at .]
"There's nothing here."
[Look at . An eternal fla shall blaze before you.]
Before?
He blinked once.
There was a frozen wall, and like the walls around this area, it was completely covered in white.
But... this wall was different.
The whitened wall was not rugged but smooth.
It was as if a well-crafted crystal or glass was disguised as a wall.
Beyond it, sothing was rippling.
A blue, pale, grayish, shimring ripple.
Only after witnessing it did he realize that it wasn't actually a ripple.
A cold light.
A white, dimly blazing fla.
The form of the fist-sized, spherical fla was reflected from beyond the translucent wall, flickering all around.
The mont his eyes t it,
He felt an unpleasant sensation.
The feeling of so deep part of his humanity being forcibly invaded.
Yet, unable to turn his eyes away, as if forcibly held, he fixed his gaze, and the voice was heard again.
[You have seen , but I have not reached. You understand... The coldness, the ice and frost, the flas of cold and silence.]
Flas of cold.
Just before he could ask what that ant, a northern fairy tale he had read in his previous life ca to mind.
A white light that wouldn't fade even with the coming of sumr.
The Lord of the Extre Realm, Aphoom-Zhah.
So that god was beneath the mine.
The cold radiance seed to pierce into his eyes.
['The Never-Extinguishing Fla.'
Once upon a ti, there lived a lazy man in a village. He was so lazy that he liked to stay indoors.
The villagers, seeing his plight, occasionally helped him. But the lazy man accepted it as if it were his due, never even saying thank you, and always just loafing around.
Tired of this, the villagers decided not to help the lazy man anymore. But even when the food brought by his neighbors stopped, the lazy man remained just as lazy. He believed that his neighbors wouldn't turn their backs on him.
As ti passed, a severe cold spell hit the north. The villagers could endure the harsh cold with the firewood and food they had diligently gathered, but the lazy man had nothing stored up.
When all the firewood was gone and he had no food left, the lazy man finally left his house. He went around begging his neighbors for food or fire, but they coldly turned him away.
-You always took our food and firewood without giving anything back. Now we don't even have enough for our families!
The lazy man, being extrely cold, asked to at least be ward by their fire, but the entire village shunned him.
The lazy man, wandering in the snowstorm, eventually collapsed in the snow.
Perhaps pitying the lazy man? A fla descended from the sky after hearing the dying man's wish to be ward by a fire.
But that fla was as cold as the ice at the mountain's peak. The fla used the lazy man's body as fuel and coldly blazed. The fire didn't stop there but engulfed the village that had cast out the lazy man.
All of this was a tragedy that happened because the lazy man was lazy.]
According to the fairy tale, the legend of Aphoom-Zhah was of a deity that burned with corpses as fuel.
A being that appeared without borrowing a human body, in other words, one of the "ancient ones" Yurik had ntioned.
So at first, he thought he'd faint upon encountering it or that sothing strange would happen, like with the Winter Giant, but nothing happened.
He understood the reason when he examined the fla beyond the wall more closely.
The size of the fla was pitifully small.
The blazing white fla was threatening, but its size was considerably different from what he had imagined.
If this fire had been just a bit larger, his flesh and muscles would have frozen and stiffened from the mont he was down there.
He cautiously addressed the fla.
"I... no, what do you an by saying I understand? I don't know anything."
[You have already seen. You have seen enough, and you will see more. There is nothing for to tell you.]
What had he seen?
The eerie voice continued.
[You are not one of my subjects. You have not been, are not, and will not be a subject of anyone. But you can serve .]
"Serve?"
[Serve and worship . Receive my blessing and spread my seeds beyond the polar region. Beyond this world, in the realm of dreams...]
The blessing of an ancient one.
In the original work, there was a passage that if one served such gods, the god would bestow a special blessing upon the worshipper.
But there was no exact ntion of what the blessing entailed.
"What kind of blessing do you an?"
[Ice and cold, everything under my authority will move as if they were your own limbs.]
For a mont, he almost cried out in surprise, but he held back.
The ability to control ice and snow!
How useful would that be in the north?
Even outside the north, as long as it wasn't an extrely hot place, it would have trendous effect.
"How should I serve you? Do I need to offer sacrifices?"
[et in dreams. Worship , move according to my will, and tell stories of things that are not dreams. You will understand the secrets of the universe and the movents of planets. When you leave the dream, you will be reborn as my first worshipper.]
The content of the deal, which could almost be considered outrageous, made his head spin.
To see a god in dreams.
Wasn't that a serious level of ntal interference?
His sleep was already disturbed from ti to ti, and now he'd be tornted even in his dreams?
The ability to handle ice was certainly tempting, but he wasn't confident that he could bear such a risk.
Ah, co to think of it.
"Would you consider accepting another worshipper? He's much healthier and stronger than . And, and handso too."
It seed better for Leandros to be able to control ice than for him.
But the fla remained silent.
It seed Aphoom-Zhah didn't want to take Leandros as a worshipper.
Sohow, it felt like putting a cherished item up for sale at a market, only to have no buyers.
Damn it.
"Or, how about slightly different terms? I'll tell you stories in dreams. But please let the ability be transferred to soone I designate."
The white light flickered.
After waiting for a long ti, a whisper was heard.
[My servant who does not serve and does not believe in . Co to the Dreamland. Blaze within my radiance. Let it be as you desire. Co close, you who do not believe in . My only worshipper...]
His hair made crackling sounds as it broke, and his fingertips not only beca numb but developed white frost.
When his breath touched the translucent wall, the moisture climbed up the wall.
Enduring the white snowflakes drawing on his cheeks, he listened for a long ti to the whisper beyond the wall.
It was a story from ancient tis that he heard with his eyes closed.
*
"...Grace!"
From sowhere, he heard a voice calling him.
A hard fragnt was held in his hand.
It was an object he didn't even know when he had started holding.
Where had he been trying to go?
What had he been trying to do?
He couldn't think of anything, as if his brain had turned to mush.
Yet, he rembered one thing he had to do.
He extended his hand to the shadow before his eyes.
His frozen, bent fingers unfolded one by one, revealing the hard fragnt.
Take it, eat it.
I brought it for you.
Besides muttering these words, he couldn't do anything else.
The shadow hesitated, then took the fragnt.
As his hand beca lighter, he was finally able to smile.
And then, like a blown fuse, he imdiately fell into sleep.
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