The wind in the Snow Realm has a shape, and the living creatures that have lived here for countless generations spare no effort in using every kind of wild exaggeration to describe it.
They are the most beautiful sculptors of the Snow Realm, turning snow, glaciers, and mountains into such majestic, spectacular forms; they are the tellers of the Snow Realm’s oldest stories, binding the native masters of this place, the guests who will co here in the future, and this land itself tightly together.
Of course, it is also the enemy travelers fear the most and least want to run into.
"Whoo—whoo—whoo—!"
In the bitterly cold deep-winter dusk, that urgent, knife-like gale quickly swept across the land, swelling into a blizzard that blotted out everything in sight.
A tiny figure in the eyes of Heaven and Earth was trudging through this wind and snow with great difficulty. Everything around was fading in the slowly sinking sunset, and only a new Moon rising in the Sky pierced the snow-white world, pointing the way for that lone figure.
Looking closely, that figure was wrapped in thick hemp clothes, but they were speckled with snow, turning them into a cold, bone-chilling dampness. Her face was tightly covered, leaving only a pair of pale green eyes exposed. In those eyes there was nothing but anger and unwillingness. Two straps were tied across her back, and behind the straps a small sled was being dragged along, piled with supplies covered by a layer of burlap.
Judging by her build, she was a young Human girl, but judging by the antlered sled behind her, she was hauling goods for a Deer Race tribe.
This was the Snow Realm’s unique "human mule" phenonon between Humans and demi-human tribes. Since there were very few ans of transportation that could move through snow, many tribes had remained closed off for long periods of ti, and the few exchanges and transport jobs were also completed by the tribes’ own residents.
"Shit! (操)"
Watching the Sun grow dimr in the Sky, the young girl’s green eyes grew more anxious. She gasped a few breaths, then pushed herself to the limit, using every ounce of strength to haul the sled behind her forward. As she walked, she shivered and muttered under her breath,
"You can do it... you can do it... Ashley..."
She really shouldn’t have stord off and gotten separated from the other Deer Race transport team bastards. Those horned, maned weirdos from this world had been bullying her for a whole month, and it was only today that she finally snapped and took another route alone...
And the result...
The result was that she just had to run into a blizzard today...
Fuck!
How can I be this unlucky!
Teeth clenched, Ashley kept dragging the sled with all her might as she stumbled forward, cursing in her heart in sheer frustration.
"Those sons of bitches... with horns that should be shoved right up their mothers’..."
"Krak!"
Just as the girl was spewing foul-mouthed insults at the Deer Race transport team that bullied her, the sled she was dragging suddenly snagged on a huge rock. She failed to pull it free, lurched, and went sprawling into a snowdrift in front of her that ca up to her knees.
She groaned in pain, then hurriedly twisted around to look at the sled. She quickly staggered back to its side, trying to lift it up.
But the more anxious you are, the less things work out—especially now. Her hands and feet were completely numb with cold, with no feeling and no strength at all. She tried to lift the jamd sled, but no matter how hard she strained, it wouldn’t budge.
Panicking, she looked up at the Sky. The Sun setting in the west was growing dimr and dimr, as if it ant to take away all the world’s light and warmth with it.
"No... no no no no... no..."
Ashley stared at the Sun as it slowly vanished, tears almost spilling from her eyes.
She’d been in this world for several months now, staying in the Deer Race tribe and having done several deliveries. She knew very well that the nights here were absolutely no place for people to be. Just ten-odd minutes would be enough for the terrifying cold to devour her, turning her completely into a lifeless Ice sculpture.
What’s more, those Deer Race tribe guys had said that monsters and ghosts road all over the ground at night...
My god, if creatures that are two ters tall with a pair of huge antlers on their heads are calling sothing "monsters," then what the hell kind of terrifying things must those be?
"No no no no!"
At this point, Ashley didn’t want to care about the sled she was hauling anymore. Maybe she should’ve done that from the start, but the tribe had its rules: the goods each person transported were more valuable than their lives. If you lost your cargo, you didn’t need to co back for dinner—you might as well die out there in the snow.
These heartless bastards...
I...
Fuck!
Ashley tried to undo the ropes strapped over her shoulders, but her five fingers now felt like they’d fused into one. She had no sensation at all and couldn’t even find the knot, and she didn’t dare take off her gloves.
"Whoo—whoo—whoo—!"
So, under her desperately anxious gaze, she could only watch as the evening Sun in the Sky was slowly swallowed up by the mountains, disappearing completely. In its place, the bright, piercingly cold Moon rose.
In that instant, Ashley felt the temperature around her plunge by far more than just a few degrees, and the darkness wrapped around her like a Devil, smothering her surroundings until she couldn’t even see the path.
It’s over...
Everything’s over...
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