Chapter 413
A harsh cold wave swept through the resort.
Snowflakes danced in the streets, and the biting chill made their bones shiver.
Lete, lightly hugging her shoulders and glancing around, spoke up.
“What a... quiet place.”
“Yeah.”
Was it because of the cold? Considering the size of this city and its reputation as a resort, it should have been bustling with people. But all the stores were closed, and only a few people wrapped tightly in layers were walking along the streets.
‘Something definitely went wrong here.’
Simon, who had been deep in thought with his chin resting on his hand, suddenly lifted his head.
“Lete, this way!”
“?”
Simon began running down the street, cutting through the piercing cold.
“Ah, why’re you suddenly running, seriously!”
Lete grumbled but chased after him.
After passing by several buildings and weaving through twisting, narrow alleys, they finally emerged into an open view.
“Ah...!”
The sea was frozen over.
The entire stretch of ocean visible in their line of sight was solid ice. Lete’s expression hardened.
“This is... far worse than what we heard.”
She rummaged through her travel bag and pulled out a booklet.
“This is what it was supposed to be like.”
A dazzling beach and sandy shore, people playing in swimsuits, and snow-covered mountains in the background.
Everything had once harmonized in perfect balance—but now, nothing from the booklet could be seen.
Simon lifted his gaze.
The snow-covered mountains. Once grand and majestic like a painting, now felt different.
“Hey, what do you think? Think we’ll be able to set sail next week?”
Simon and Lete turned their heads.
A boatman sitting at the dock was talking to someone. His fellow sailor was tapping the thick ice with the back of his hand, then shaking his head.
“Next week? Try next month. At least.”
“This is bad. If we don’t move this cargo, we’re bankrupt.”
“Laus. May I ask you something?”
Lete, her snow-white hair fluttering, approached the two men.
“This cold snap and the sea freezing over, when did it start?”
“When? Hmm. The weather’s been unstable for a while now, but the sea actually freezing over... been about six months.”
The boatman sighed deeply as he answered.
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Coola’s port is an unfrozen harbor. That means it’s a natural harbor where the surface doesn’t freeze, even in winter. What’s happening in the city right now, it’s all unprecedented in Coola’s history.”
“He’s right.”
A dark-skinned sailor climbed up the dock ladder.
“All the barley in the village froze and died. The only route in, the sea, is blocked. We’re trapped in this city and bound to starve.”
This time, Simon spoke up.
“Is there no alternative route to bring in food, other than the sea?”
“Look there. See those mountains?”
The sailor pointed with his hand.
The entire area around the city was ringed by snow-covered mountains. Apart from this city—the only flat land—everything was mountainous, and the south faced the sea.
“Even if you paid a fortune, no merchant group would dare cross those mountains to bring food.”
“Right. Right.”
The boatman nodded in agreement.
“And that’s not even the worst part. The monsters that used to appear only in midwinter are now far more active because of the extreme cold. Coola is hell right now.”
As he lamented, he glanced at Lete’s outfit and asked,
“Come to think of it, never seen your faces before. Tourists?”
Lete answered smoothly, not betraying a hint of discomfort.
“Who’d be a tourist in this situation? We’re just adventurers.”
“Got it.”
He waved his hand dismissively.
“If you’ve got the skill to cross the mountains avoiding monsters, you’d better get out of Coola fast. It may seem peaceful now, but it’s on a knife’s edge. Any day now, this place could turn into a lawless zone because of the food crisis.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Simon gave a polite smile. The boatman clicked his tongue and nodded.
“You folks are the ones doing me a favor, listening to some stranger’s woes.”
They explored the city gathering information, but it all lined up with what they’d heard at the dock.
“As far as I know, Coola lives off tourism and specialty goods.”
Lete, walking with her hands in her pockets, began to speak.
“What kind of specialty goods?”
“Holywater leaves.”
Simon looked as if it was his first time hearing the name, and Lete added in her usual calm voice.
“A plant used in major holy ceremonies and rituals. When cleaned thoroughly and floated in water, it purifies impurities. The leaves themselves turn the water white, a symbol of the highest quality holy water. It’s essential for places like great cathedrals.”
“Must be expensive.”
“Yep. But with this weather, the holywater leaf farms are probably all ruined too.”
The more they learned, the more hopeless Coola’s situation seemed.
Then, warm breath came out of Simon’s mouth.
“It’s getting colder. Let’s put something on.”
“Good idea.”
Both of them simultaneously opened their subspaces and pulled out robes.
They were dressed according to the outfits prepared by Israfil, but still, no adventurer look was complete without a robe. It just felt wrong without one.
Simon pulled out a white robe and began putting it on.
“Hm?”
Lete, too, was slipping into a white robe of the exact same design. A big smile of delight spread across Simon’s face.
“Oh, that robe! That’s the one I bought you back in the Holy Federation, right?”
“!!”
Lete’s face stiffened as she glanced back at Simon. Then, her face turned bright red, and she hastily tried to hide the robe behind her.
“Wha—what the hell, you jerk! I just randomly grabbed one robe out of many, and it happened to be this one!”
“Yeah?”
When Simon chuckled slyly, Lete shouted in a flustered voice.
“T-turn it inside out!”
“Huh?”
“Flip it to black, dumbass! I’m wearing white!”
“Why? I can wear whatever I want.”
“No! If you wear it like that then...!”
Right at that moment—
Two women passing by looked at them and giggled.
“Hey, look at those two. Total matching couple outfits.”
“Ugh, so annoying—but kinda cute.”
It was just a small whisper, but Lete, who caught the meaning like a ghost, turned red all the way to her earlobes.
She suddenly lunged at Simon and tried to take his robe off.
“W-what the heck, why are you doing this all of a sudden?”
“Change it to black, now!”
As Simon kept resisting, Lete slammed her forehead into his chest with a thump! Simon let out a groan and took a step back.
“If it bothers you that we’re wearing the same robe, you could’ve just picked a different one from the dozens we have!”
“N-no! Don’t give me orders! You’re just a necromancer!”
“You just gave me an ord— Ugh!”
The two squabbled in the street for quite a while.
“Haa... haa...”
After a fierce struggle, Lete managed to pin Simon to the wall and forcibly took off his robe.
The scuffle had been so intense that Simon was left sitting with his legs spread, looking disheveled, while Lete knelt between them, clutching the stolen robe tightly in her hands.
Their breath, ragged and heavy, came in close proximity.
“If you do weird stuff outside in this cold, you’ll freeze to death!”
Puhahahaha!
A group of drunken men laughed boisterously as they passed by.
Lete, now red all the way up to the nape of her neck, quickly sprang back.
“Argh! Seriously, this is so childish! You could’ve just changed robes! What were you thinking?!”
Simon tidied up his messy hair.
“You surprised me, charging at me like that. And you’re one to talk, Saint, forcibly stripping someone in public?”
“Shut up! Don’t even say the word ‘saint’!”
Lete flipped Simon’s robe inside out to the black side and threw it at his chest like a shove.
“H-hurry up and put it on. We don’t have time to mess around.”
Then she sprang to her feet and stomped off ahead.
Simon had no choice but to wear the robe, now reversed to black.
Since they were in the Holy Federation, and he was supposed to be pretending to be a priest, he had planned on wearing the white robe.
“Aren’t you going to investigate? Stop dawdling and get over here.”
Still, maybe she felt a little bad. Lete glanced at Simon as she spoke, and Simon followed her with a quiet smile.
—There’s no food in the village. This is seriously bad.
—I saw monsters moving in groups from the mountains last night! Feels like a bad omen.
The two of them jotted down the information they gathered into their notebooks.
As they continued walking the streets to collect more intel—
Cough, cough!
They came upon an old woman, wrapped in a tattered blanket and sitting on a straw mat. In front of her sat a crystal ball.
It looked like a fortune-telling stall aimed at tourists, but with no tourists around, there’d be no income.
Seeing her trembling in the cold, worn out and waiting for customers, stirred a bit of pity.
“Wait here for a second.”
Lete, seeing the old woman, headed briskly toward a nearby shop with its door slightly open.
She spoke to someone inside, handed over some money, and came back with some bread and jerky.
“Excuse me—”
Lete knelt on the mat across from the old woman and gave a soft smile.
“We don’t have any money, but... would you accept food instead?”
She tore open the bag and laid out the bread and jerky, and tears welled up in the old woman’s eyes.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
Apparently famished, she began devouring the food in a hurry.
“You eat too.”
Lete chewed on a piece of jerky as she spoke.
It was a late lunch.
Sitting beside her, Simon picked up a piece of bread and murmured in a small voice,
“I take it back. You really do act like a saint som—”
Thwack!
Lete punched Simon in the arm. She didn’t hold back, and it really hurt.
Simon clutched his arm, silently screaming in pain.
After their meal, the old woman, now with a much brighter expression, picked up her crystal ball to begin her work.
“Hehehe! Now, shall I tell your fortune...”
“No, actually, I had something I wanted to ask instead.”
Lete inquired about the abnormal weather and the cold snap in Coola.
This time, they got an answer slightly different from the others, something a bit new.
“All of this is because of Escaille’s curse.”
Simon and Lete’s eyes sparkled simultaneously at the name Escaille. That was the very village the two of them were about to visit as tutors.
The old woman pointed her wrinkled finger toward the heart of the snow-covered mountains.
“Escaille’s grudge against the people of Coola has become a curse, turning this place into a frozen hell.”
“A grudge?”
“The people of Escaille used to live in Coola too. That was, oh, more than several decades ago.”
But the rest of her story was more like gossip than anything useful, nothing to really go on.
“Well, since you’ve paid for a reading, I suppose I’ll give you one.”
The old woman scanned Simon and Lete’s faces with a sly grin. She was a professional, after all—she knew how to entertain tourists.
“Then how about a couple’s reading...?”
“If you must do it, please give us separate readings.”
Lete cut her off flatly.
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters
Very good story and translation but half the chapter aren't for free and it is wayyyy too expensive will it stat like tjis foreve or will it get free after some time