“Uh…Caedrel, who is this?” They both asked practically at the same time, looking over at me with eyes filled with pure confusion.

The two of them slowly got up as they got closer to the both of us while glaring only toward Hank, who was sat with his sword in between his legs with his head laid back against the chair. He looked as if there wasn’t an ounce of strength in his body at the moment.

And more importantly, Hank’s overall appearance did not help at all when making a good first impression. His hair was all disheveled, his beard was all grown out without any proper care, and the dark circles under his eyes certainly did not help. His overall body was also nothing impressive at all. He practically had no visible muscles that could be seen with the naked eye.

Nevertheless, it was easy to guess that their first impression of Hank certainly wasn’t the best.

“Hank, an old friend of mine. He was sent to help me deal with Zero from the looks of it.”

Hank just did a little wave toward the two of them before turning back in my direction.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir. How did you meet with Caedrel?” Amelia asked with a bright smile, standing near him.

He released a sigh. “Umm, it’s complicated. I don’t really want to get into the details of it, you should ask him instead. He probably wouldn’t mind answering.” Hank pointed at me as he uttered those words.

Both girls turned and looked over at me, as if expecting an answer.

However, I wasn’t really in the mood to talk about this story since the way the two of us had met was unusual, to say the least.

That’s why I quickly changed the subject by saying, “Maybe another time. Still, I’ll tell you a little bit more about him since he will be coming with us to the Icy Lake.”

***

One hour passed, and I told them pretty much everything necessary about Hank. I told them that he was very powerful, that we met in the war as soldiers, things of that sort that were basic knowledge.

Nevertheless, it was time to move again. The night had passed. The two of them had rested enough to continue walking toward the Icy Lake, which meant that we were getting closer and closer to Zero, the reason for all this mess. I was just hoping that he hadn’t escaped when I would get there. Otherwise, I would be back to square one, completely lost without the slightest idea of where he had run off.

Things were going quite well. Amelia was still throwing me some glances as she walked, and every time I would look in her direction, she would just look away straight away with a blush, whatever that meant.

I didn’t know if I had done something wrong, which was causing this reaction, but it was definitely strange from her.

Hank was the same as always, either complaining that we were walking so much or keeping his mouth shut, releasing a sigh every few moments.

“How far away from the Icy Lake are we?” I asked again.

“Two hours, I’d say. We’re getting quite close.”

“Why did you make your underground city so far from it? Isn’t it a sacred place for all of you? It would have made more sense to place your kingdom right beside it, no?”

Amelia just shrugged. “That’s how it has always been. It was never that much of a bother for most elves, too.”

I just nodded as there was no point to argue.

Ever since we had met that strange beast that changed the weather, I had been activating [Mana Sense] every five minutes or so, to see if there was something like it in our path. However, ever since then, there had not been a single beast close to us.

I did not know if it was because of the path we were taking, which had been carefully chosen by Amelia, or if such a thing was influenced by an outside power.

“Are monsters not common in the Snowy Mountains?” I asked, wanting an answer to my question.

“They are, actually. It’s pretty weird that we haven’t seen a single one. Maybe they have been avoiding us because of your presence. Who knows, to be honest?”

However, just a second later, I felt a presence within my [Mana Sense]. Something had just appeared out of nowhere once again, and it hadn’t appeared in a random place. It had appeared right beside us, only a few meters away from us.

When I looked over in its direction, there was once again absolutely nothing to be seen.

It could only mean one thing.

It was the same beast as back then. It had to be. I did not believe that there were so many beasts like that wandering inside the Snowy Mountains.

I didn’t even utter a single word as I immediately dashed in the beast’s direction, aiming for its head. However, my strike wasn’t very precise since I could only vaguely see what it looked like because of my [Mana Sense].

Then, just like back then, it disappeared right as my strike was about to cut off its head. It seemed one of the beast’s powers was teleportation amongst weather control. However, once more, I just knew that there was something off about that beast.

“Amelia, did you ever see a beast like this in the past? Something that can teleport and control the weather of this place.”

Amelia frowned as she understood right away why Caedrel had acted in such a way.

“Was that beast back?” she asked, worried.

“It was. However, it seems to have disappeared again from the looks of it.”

Hank, who hadn’t been paying much attention to this whole situation, just frowned. “What are you talking about? It didn’t teleport. It just moved so fast that none of you were able to see it. It’s been looking at us from far away ever since we left the campfire. It just never got close to us.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us about it?!” I shouted, forgetting who the man I was dealing with was.

“Well, I didn’t think it was a big deal. It didn’t even attack, it was only looking at us.”

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