Lucimia and Desty rode white horses through the mountains, white backs cutting a white world like brushstrokes on frost glass.

Oh no—today the “green hills” were winter-white, a cold scroll still unrolled.

Their hearts felt winter-cold too, a hush of ice under the ribs before every breath.

Hooves pressed into soft snow, a string of neat prints like beads on white silk. After a beat of thought, Lucimia lifted the snow with a spell and covered the trail like a hand smoothing linen.

The farther north they went, the lower the heat sank, the air prickling like needles. Snow drifted thick as a falling Milky Way, stars turned to flakes.

They pulled scarves tight, a second skin against the wind that bit like a wolf at the throat.

Lucimia raised a shimmering barrier, a thin pane of light to keep the flung snow from stinging her face, though the steady drain of mana throbbed like a slow leak.

“I think… we’ve crossed into Nach Valley,” Desty said, edging close, voice a small fire in the wind.

“Mm.” Lucimia nodded, gaze lifting to the front, thoughts falling like flakes.

Several snowbound peaks pressed shoulder to shoulder, carving V’s and U’s and strange runes into the sky like cold calligraphy.

Between paired slopes, narrow hollows held little streams—now glassed over, a string of frozen knives laid edge to edge.

“Valleys like this have to be crawling with beasts, right?” Desty tugged her scarf, breath a pale ribbon. “Way more than a small forest. But… in this cold, do any even come out?”

“Hard to say,” Lucimia guessed, voice wrapped in caution. “Some only show up in weather like this, and they’re usually not weak. Some use magic. They roam year-round, no fear of heat or frost.”

“You’ve got a point. So where do we even start looking for the Cross?”

“Let’s get deeper first,” Lucimia said, words careful as footsteps. “Where a Cross lies, mist tends to spread like a sleeping veil, except…”

“Except?” Desty pressed, worry tapping like rain.

“Except heavy snow makes mist hard to pick out,” Lucimia answered, eyes narrowing into the white.

“Right… also…” Desty paused, a thought biting. “Are we gonna be stuck in here for ages? Sleeping, eating, all of it—how long till we find it? And what if the rat shows up before we do? It’s using you like a beacon… to eat you, right?”

“…No idea.” The admission felt like cold iron on Lucimia’s tongue, helplessness first, plan second.

“We’ll have Fuzzy Orb scout,” she added, grasping at a thread. “If that fails, we’ll use more Reversions. And we need to be careful. Ment might’ve laid traps in here—curses that trigger the moment you brush them.”

“Oh.” The word fell like a pebble into deep snow.

Their horses carried them into the valley’s throat, where no friendly road welcomed feet—only broken, steep rubble like a staircase hacked by a drunk giant.

Snow hid depths like white water hiding whirlpools; one bad step, and you’d slide, fall, vanish into powder.

So the girls disguised the horses as two turtles, tucked them close like warm stones against their bodies, and went on foot.

Lucimia glanced up at a nearby tree, the branches stark as ink lines. She raised a hand, loosed a Wind Blade, and two limbs snapped free, thudding into snow like dropped spears. She stooped, picked them up, and passed one to Desty.

“Use this to test the way. Make sure the next step holds.”

“Got it.” Desty drove the branch into the snow ahead, feeling for depth like a blind fisher testing ice, then stepped only when the slope didn’t bite.

Rock walls rose knife-cut and sheer, and a narrow path threaded the tight forest like a black hair on white silk.

This was the true no-man’s-land—nothing but steep mountain veins. By Wasan Village the forest at least showed a worn track; here, no one had ever bothered to write their footsteps.

Silence pooled around them, the cold breathing down their necks, a shrine of frost that made the heart clench.

“Hey…” Desty halted, turned, eyes a question lantern. “What do we do at night?”

She meant sleep, the human pause between storms.

“I set a Teleportation Array outside,” Lucimia said, calm like a steady wick. “At night, we jump out to rest.”

“Oh. That helps.” The relief floated, thin and warm.

They walked on, snow whispering like sand.

Suddenly, Lucimia’s chest tightened; then her hand was on Desty’s shoulder, a quick anchor. “There’s a monster ahead.”

“Huh? For real?”

“Yeah. Fuzzy Orb pinged it.”

Boom.

A massive white serpent blasted up from beneath Desty’s next step, a geyser of snow fountaining skyward like torn clouds.

Lucimia didn’t think; her hand snapped up, a Wind Blade knifing out. It struck the scales—and shattered like glass on stone, not a scratch to show for it.

“What is that thing?” Lucimia asked, throat dry as chalk.

“That… that’s an S-class in the adventurer ranks!” Desty blurted, face blanching. “They call it a Tundra Serpent!”

“…” Lucimia had no words—only the clean silence of a bad joke.

Of course. A true no-man’s-land. Even a “random” spawn was S-class.

The serpent reared, emerald slit-pupils staring down like cold lanterns.

“Fall back,” Lucimia decided, choice sharp as a pulled blade.

“Right.” Desty nodded, chin tight.

Lucimia triggered the Teleportation Array without a wasted breath, and the two of them snapped out of the valley, reappearing on its frosted outer ring.

“Whew. Nearly died. We barely got in,” Desty said, dropping onto the snow like a stone into a white pond.

“This is messy,” Lucimia muttered, rubbing her temple, thoughts a knotted skein. “Beasts in there aren’t low-level. Trading spells won’t one-shot. It’s risky. And using Authority Power will burn a lot.”

“Then… let Fuzzy Orb scout while we stay outside?” Desty offered, hope like a small flame.

“Possible,” Lucimia said, then winced. “But condensing Fuzzy Orb costs energy and focus. Nach Valley’s huge. The scan could take ages.”

“Ugh… such a pain.” The sigh fogged the air like a ghost.

“Yeah. We need an easier way to sniff out the Cross. Otherwise we’re needle-in-a-haystack, just colder.”

A spark flared in Lucimia’s mind, sudden as flint—Blessing [Monster Control].

She’d Devoured it from Abiao. It could command any monster and share their sight like mirrors linked by thread.

Nach Valley was vast; Fuzzy Orb alone would crawl like an ant. Monsters were already spread everywhere. With that Blessing, she could see the valley’s whole face through their eyes, then chase any patch with wandering mist, then send Fuzzy Orb to probe that exact spot.

But the Blessing had a gate—she had to eat raw monster flesh to invoke it, a rule written like iron.

She couldn’t do it; the thought itself was bile. She didn’t know if “eat” left a loophole Fuzzy Orb could slide through.

“Worth a try first… and if it doesn’t work…” she murmured, voice low as snow at dusk.