Chapter 65: 65 North Pole 01.

As the light that embraced his eyes was gone, a violent wind seeped into his bones, chilling his veins. Jin slowly opened his eyes in the cold; his eyes snapped wide, and he turned to look at his surroundings.

A white world entirely covered by snow and no stark sunlight dared to pierce the black clouds that hovered above.

The slight warmth that permeated his palm came from the girl whose body froze, trembling with white mist exhaled from her mouth. Her pale hand firmly squeezed his, desperately seeking warmth.

“Silvia uses this”. Jin put one of his Adventuring coats on the girl’s back, covering her bare neckline and open shoulders.

Silvia, still trembling within his arm, gently lifted her azure eyes and met with Jin. Her long eyelashes filled with tiny snows, and she gently leaned her whole body closer to his chest.

“Jin, where are we?”. Silvia forced her quivering lips to talk.

The cold that breached her consciousness dulled her thoughts momentarily as Silvia could not exert any strength of her physique or mind power.

However, the reality was not that dreamy; Jin placed the hood on the jacket to cover Silvia’s face completely so she couldn’t see his tightened expression.

Their situation was much worse, considering they were stranded in the middle of the freezing pole, with no direction from the stars or even wind, as it clashed violently, creating a chaotic current.

Jin inhaled, closed his eyes, and tapped the primal mana in the atmosphere, connecting his thoughts to create a spell that could help them in this predicament.

Then suddenly, his closed eyes jolted open for the extreme cold that froze even his soul.

’Mana flows unnaturally in this place’. His Jade eyes flashed, and he saw the crackling tiny blast coming from the mana collision that happened from everywhere.

The flow of mana is usually formed like a stream gently floating in the atmosphere, sometimes having a distinctive colour that divides its nature.

However, that has nothing to do with this place. All the distinctive colours he knew clashed, creating a deafening hum that whistled in the air.

“I don’t know it either, but”. Jin’s jaws clatter against each other. In a shivering voice, he says, “We are probably in the North Continent”.

“!?”. Silvia’s body flinched as she sucked a cold breath of air, pushing away her consciousness further into the abyss.

“We must seek shelter first. Can you walk?”.

Instead of replying, Silvia curled her trembling finger into Jin’s suit. Beneath the hood, away from Jin’s sight, she bit her lips and glimmering tears accumulated in her darkened eyes.

The calming rhythm of Jin’s pounding heart resonated in her ears, gently pulling her away from the abyss.

He saw the girl shake her head and softly exhale. Jin then looked toward the side, where a translucent panel hovered over, alerting him of a new quest.

[World Quest Progression had been triggered]

[Quest progress: 0%]

[Crisis avoided!]

#####

[Character Quest opened!]

[Character Quest: Sword Saint of Ice]

Detail: Help Silvia Regain her spirit and Awoken her true strength.

Reward: Rainbow Key.

Failure: One of the significant characters that would help your journey would lose its star. Greatly risking your Fate.

#####

’This is the first time the World Quest is getting stirred, but’. For the first time after his long absence, a piece of memories that hid deep inside his brain resurfaced; it awoke him from the reality of his struggle for all this time. ’Character Quest, huh?’.

’Silvia Frost!?’. Now, he remembered there was a character that his friend mentioned, but she was significantly excluded from the story. Not because she would be dead but because she only presents as a supporting character who would help the protagonist grow.

The character’s name was Silvia Frost. She was one of the strongest characters in the early game as the holder of Sword Saint talent and her unique possession of Ice magic.

She was not one of the game’s heroines, and her involvement with the protagonist would start at the academy, where she would become the protagonist’s goal to achieve the strength he idealized.

As the dawn of realization hit him like a landslide, he wrapped an arm around the girl’s back and knees and lifted her in a princess carry. ’I will think about that later. For now, let’s search for a place to rest’.

Silvia opened her mouth, but the words got stuck in her throat. She curled her quivering lips and leaned closer.

“I’m sorry, Jin. This is all my fault”.

“You will get wrinkles if your face keeps frowning like that; it wastes your natural beauty”. Jin threw some light jokes to ease the girl’s mood, but she snuggled close, and tears flooded her cheeks.

“*sob *hic, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have received the necklace”.

The girl was weakly sobbing. Jin tightened his grip on her shoulders and knees, saying, “You are not at fault. Everything’s going to be alright.”

“I am here with you”.

When those words left his mouth, the girls cried helplessly in his chest. Her tearing voice was akin to a blade that sliced his heart apart, and the cold that pierced his skin hardened his expression further as he muttered under his breath. ’Those guys!’.

Jin recalled the moment when he took the initiative and grabbed Silvia’s glowing body before the presence of a stranger girl and his second brother.

He didn’t know what happened between them, but it was clear that Jin faintly caught the smirking smile of the girl who stood beside Victor with a black murky aura that was familiar, leaking from her body.

’I will remember this!’. Jin casually lifted his foot from the thick snow under, leaving a deep trace, but swiftly erased just as he reached every fifth step.

His heavy body, coupled with the weight under his arm, pushed him to his physical limit under the extreme weather that surrounded them. The unnatural wind current swayed his balance as it hit Jin from every direction.

Even so, Jin grits his teeth and keeps pushing forward, keeping his eyes open in search of a place to stay for a while.

“Hm!?”. The hair on his back stood, feeling the crawling chill that caressed his spine.

Jin shook his head, but a growling voice broke the tension that shrouded the entire place.

Away from his flickering vision, he saw a pair of red eyes walking slowly toward them. Its body was covered in thick snow fur, and its limbs were equipped with sharpened claws that could rip apart boulders.

It has a round face with a tiny pair of ears on its head, and its pair of red eyes portray raw hunger and jagged teeth that are gnashed with drool over Jin’s flesh.

’Damn, a monster appears and a strong one at that’. Jin’s face hardened; he gulped his saliva and focused on knocking the primal mana around.

He averted his gaze below, seeing the girl was trembling with blood that seemed away from her body. Jin gritted his teeth, throwing away his thoughts of fighting the bear, as his first priority was fleeing.

*Raaawr!

The bear monster let out a guttural roar that blasted the surrounding snow and shook Jin’s eardrums, coming with a ringing noise in his head. It raised its claws, gleaming under the dim light and swung it sideways.

[Elemental Enhancement]

Jin’s eyes widened when the vicious mana in the atmosphere seeped into his pores. The cold mana slowly eroded his senses, sapping away the heat from his body. His consciousness faltered, and Jin bit his lips. The slight pain shattered the dizziness that occupied his mind.

He jumped and raised his hand forward, constructing a green magic circle that emerged beside the bear. It glows faintly before it spits a huge tornado that swallows the monster and the snow around it.

A low, threatening rumble reverberated in the field, but thanks to the vortex force, the bear vanished from the area, leaving Jin and Silvia, who landed on the soft surface with bated breath.

’Ha, ha, it was harsh using magic in this place’. With only a shot, Jin’s consciousness halted, and his body temperature dropped significantly.

“Jin, are you alright?”.

Silvia broke free from Jin’s hand but fell down with a dull thud as she couldn’t even feel an ounce of strength left in her being. She bit her lips, and her shivering hand reached out toward Jin’s hand.

“No, I’m okay.” He shook his head, scooped the girl from below, and stood up. “Let’s go”.

Jin didn’t waste his battered breath and stepped forward before a deafening roar shook the entire atmosphere. Its sheer shockwave even changed the flow of chaotic wind.

The glow in his body brightened as Jin took more cold mana essence from the atmosphere to his system, torturing him slowly. ’Damn, that monster was persistent’.

“Airwalk”. Green magic circles appeared beneath his sole feet as he jumped upward.

Jin kicked empty air, cutting through the oppressive wind, which pushed them down and disappeared toward the horizon.

He journeyed through the white land, which seemed never to end until he saw a mountain formation far away in the distance.

Several hills surround a tall summit that reaches the clouds. Its deep steepness is filled with jagged rocks covered by snow.

His Jade eyes never tired of scanning around as he found a hollowed cave right in the corner of his sight. Jin grits his trembling jaws, suppressing the chilling agony that gnawed at his body and landed before the massive maw.

The cave structure was dark, deep, and eerie. Spiral-carved ice surged throughout all the walls as if made by men’s hands.

Jin saw no soul or some sort of aura in sight, and when thinking about the weather in this place, there was no way a sane human would choose to live there. But there is an exception to all of it if they have a special circumstance surrounding them.

“Let’s rest inside”. He turned toward the girl in his hand, who nodded her head weakly.

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