The two sword strikes flew side by side on the pristine snowy mountain. The avalanche, as big as a house, shattered noisily, and the debris melted away in soliette’s heat.
I sheathed my sword. Soliette did the same.
“Phew!”
Soliette sighed in relief, but I was annoyed.
“Why do you keep copying me?”
She keeps mimicking the Severing Sword. Arkne swordsmanship would have been much more effective against that snowball.
“Shion’s swordsmanship is very good. It feels like it’s become second nature to me.”
The phrase ‘second nature.’
Whether she regressed or not, perhaps the Severing Sword itself is a talent that suits her.
“You know, that’s like copyright infringement.”
But it’s not a good thing. Not for soliette, nor for the Arkne family.
“Shion, please be my master.”
“Your master is supposed to be your family.”
The Arkne family is essentially ‘swordsmanship.’
It means that the family was created to pass down swordsmanship, not that the family passes down swordsmanship.
Therefore, before regression, Soliette, who chose the Severing Sword, had no choice but to sever ties with her family.
“lt’s petty. I taught you Arkne swordsmanship, didn’t I7”
“That’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“YOU… Ah, let's just walk.”
We continued up the path. The cold persisted, so I leaned against soliette’s back.
“Don’t turn off the heater.”
“Then teach me the swordsmanship.”
“You said you’d learn by watching anyway.”
Still, it’s not too bad. If she uses Arkne as the base and learns the Severing Sword as a special technique.
“Yes. Then I will continue to learn by watch ing.”
Soliette, sounding somewhat pleased, turned up the intensity of the heater. The area around us warmed up.
It made me a bit drowsy, but let’s endure until we find a suitable campsite.
At an altitude of 5,000 meters.
The cold here is almost magical. Not that it’s actually magical, but it’s as magically cold.
Because of this, I’ve run into a problem.
The cold, coupled with the side effects of the Severing Sword, has me nearly passing out. The issue of getting sleepy when my stamina runs out is still very much present.
“…Soliette. This place looks good. Let’s rest for a bit.”
We must have been climbing non-stop for about 16 hours. I spotted a cave-like formation in the snowy mountain.
It was a crevice where the walls overlapped in a curved shape, quite spacious, enough to build a sturdy igloo that could last us a few days.
“Yes. Let’s rest.”
Soliette seemed tired too and agreed.
“Should we spread out the sleeping bags first?”
“No. Let’s build the igloo.”
I moved the snow using a Magic Spell. It was ‘telekinesis.’
“Wow~ Shion. Did you learn this too?”
It’s from Raquel Dra, but soliette wouldn’t know that.
“Yeah. Just in case, I learned it.”
I pulled the snowflakes into the crevice, stacking them layer by layer to build an igloo that could fit about four to five people.
In 30 minutes, a pretty decent igloo was completed.
Not the kind kids make out of snow for fun, but the neat igloos you’d see in cartoons.
“Let’s go inside.”
“Yes.”
We entered.
Soliette made an admiring noise like an old man.
“lt’s cozy, Shion. Will it hold if we turn on the heater in here?”
This guy has already accepted the fact that she’s like a heater.
“lf you release your magic power too strongly, of course it’ll melt. But it should hold up just fine with the heater.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“Yeah. Let’s start a fire first. It’ll be a waste of your magic power otherwise.”
Even a human heater isn’t infinite. We need to rest and refuel appropriately.
I took out a burner. A mountaineering cooking device that runs on magic power. It’s one of the supplies, and as soon as soliette flicked her finger, the fire blazed up.
The warmth quickly filled the inside of the igloo.
“…Ah.”
I groaned and lay down on the floor. Soliette took out a frying pan.
Seemingly hungry, she started sizzling some frozen meat we had in supplies on the pan.
“…”
I watched soliette as she salivated over the cooking meat and then noticed my gaze.
“l'm cooking yours too, Shion.”
“…Yeah. But it won’t be enough, will it?”
I've calculated, and the amount of supplies in our backpacks is ridiculously low. Not even enough for half a day, let alone a full day.
Especially since our base metabolic rate is probably equivalent to three or four average men combined.
“So, are you planning not to eat, Shion?”
Soliette asked with a hint of anticipation.
“No, I’m going to eat it.”
“……Yes.”
I didn’t understand why she seemed disappointed.
“lt means we have to hunt. We’ll have to keep going while hunting.”
“Hmm… If you want, we can plant the flag and go down. 5,000 meters is more than enough to pass the first test.”
I chuckled dryly and shook my head.
“Who would you trust?”
“Trust? Who?”
Soliette is too naive right now.
Maybe I’m being too cynical, but still.
“Think about it. Sure, the rule is that you can go down the mountain once you plant the flag. But who manages those flags?”
As I asked, Soliette’s eyes widened slightly.
“This knight’s exam, everyone’s a competitor. There will probably be a lot of people who will pull out any flag they see. Some might even go around looking for flags to pull out. Or, the mountain beasts swarming around here might break them.”
Soliette nodded as he listened to me.
“So, the climb itself is a test, but if you can’t protect your flag, you’re completely out.”
“Ah… That makes sense.”
She seemed to understand as she distributed the fully cooked meat onto plates.
We split the meat evenly between us, but it was far from enough.
“We’ll have to go hunting.”
Soliette looked like she couldn’t stand it anymore. Her stomach was growling loudly.
At some point, she had regained her appetite and had become a complete glutton.
She took out a whetstone. I quietly watched as she sharpened her sword with swift strokes.
The motion of sharpening on the whetstone. Her focused eyes. Her long hair tied up into a ponytail.
Every aspect of her was just like before the regression.
The soliette I loved before the regression…
Ah, except for the grease around her mouth.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“Severing Sword. You learned it by watching me, right?”
I asked her pointlessly. It seemed like she still had some faint memories from before the regression.
“Of course. Who else would I learn from if not Shion? But, is the sword technique called Severing Sword?”
“Ascal Style.”
“Ascal Style… Would you consider taking me as your disci ple?”
Soliette’s eyes were earnest.
Shick—Shick—
The sound of the sword being sharpened on the whetstone added a menacing air.
“Let’s go hunting. I can’t sleep because I’m hungry.”
I got up.
“Yes.”
Soliette followed suit.
Whooooosh!
As soon as we stepped out, a fierce wind whipped around us.
“Boiler!”
“Say heater, instead.”
I clung close to soliette as I turned on the SZX-9500, scanning for potential prey…
“Huh?”
“Did you find something?”
Soliette asked, swallowing her saliva.
“Yeah. Found a person.”
“Really?”
Thud, thud. A man, covered in frost, was climbing the mountain in the distance.
Gerkhen.
He was in a precarious state, on the verge of collapsing, or rather, he was already collapsed and only his feet were moving.
“His willpower is something else.”
Typical of Gerkhen. Of course, even for someone like him, this environment wouldn’t be easy…
That’s when a thought flashed through my mind. Suddenly, I considered this magical cold.
“…Guess it wasn’t at me after all.”
“What do you mean?”
At first, I thought this cold was targeting me.
But, that couldn’t be right.
The target was Gerkhen.
I just happened to take the same route as him.
“Come on. Let’s go save him… Oh. There’s food next to him too.”
“Food?”
“Yeah. A beast.”
The difference between a beast and a monster is that both are dangerous, but you can eat a beast.
“lt’s a bear.”
A pitch-black bear, plump and meaty, its eyes fixed on Gerkhen.
It seems it followed him up here to catch him in his vulnerable state, but that’s even better for us.
“Let’s go catch it.”
“Yes! We’ll be having bear soup today.”
Soliette licked her lips as she prepared to move out.
Bubble, bubble - bubble, bubble -
The sound of the bear soup boiling woke Gerkhen up. He blinked slowly as he lay there.
“…You awake?”
Someone called out to him. Gerkhen jerked his upper body up in surprise.
“Why so start led 7”
“…”
It was Shion Ascal.
Gerkhen silently alternated his gaze between Shion and the bear soup, confused about what was happening.
His memories of climbing the snowy mountain were fragmented.
Shion spoke.
“You passed out. Because of the cold.”
“…”
Bubble, bubble -
Enticed by the sound of the soup, Gerkhen asked.
“Did you save me?”
“Something like that. Soliette and I.”
Gerkhen looked around the interior. Soliette wasn’t there.
“She’s outside butchering right now. Meat, hide, and various other useful things. For now, eat this.”
Shion handed him a bowl of bear soup. Gerkhen didn’t refuse. His hunger was nearly murderous.
Gulp - gulp -
After taking a sip, Gerkhen asked Shion.
“…Can you guys handle the cold?”
“Well… It’s tough for me too. Soliette’s the only one who’s okay.”
Shion then made a slightly strange expression.
“You’re being targeted.”
“…Targeted?”
Gerkhen repeated.
“Yeah. Didn’t you become a disciple of Professor Theia?”
That news was well-known. The moment Gerkhen obtained his knight certification, he officially became Theia’s apprentice.
“lt’s probably Libra. It's definitely Libra.”
Shion was certain that this was Libra's interference.
Libra would torment Theia Esil by meddling with her subordinates. Persistently and relentlessly shaking those around her, ultimately isolating her.
Gerkhen, the most loyal companion who had stayed by her side the longest.
Yet, he was the very person who would betray her at the most crucial moment, leading Theia to her demise.
In this life too, he would probably betray Theia.
“…Why would Libra?”
“Your professor declared war on us.”
The living being killed, its soul overwritten by artificial intelligence. An unethical act that Theia could never condone.
“Just eat the bear soup. We need to start moving soon.”
Thump—
Shion set the bear soup on the igloo floor, grabbed the burner, and then stepped outside.
“…”
Gerkhen, after glancing around, lifted the pot of bear soup and started eating.
Gulp—gulp—gulp—
He ate the meat and crunched the bones. The soup was so hearty that he was full after eating about half of it.
“…Ah.”
Having satisfied his hunger, Gerkhen also stepped outside the igloo. Soliette and Shion were standing there.
“…I don’t owe you anything.”
At Gerkhen’s words, Shion chuckled.
“Owe nothing. Just take this.”
Shion handed over a third of the bear supplies to Gerkhen. A bear skin to wear, and meat to eat later, all wrapped up like a bundle.
Soliette frowned in surprise.
“…Ah, Shion. I spent three hours diligently butchering that”
“Take it.”
Shion insisted. Gerkhen quietly looked at it.
“Our paths are different, so we can’t go together. Just don't die.”
Theia and Libra.
Now inherently antagonistic, they couldn’t even pretend to be friendly.
“Thanks.”
Gerkhen hugged the bundle to his side. Soliette pouted like a child who had her toy taken away.
“Yeah. GO.”
Trudging up the slope, Gerkhen could hear soliette and Shion’s conversation trailing behind him.
“…I spent hours butchering that.”
“Ah, we can just catch another one. There are two of us, after all.”
“Hmph… But what about this igloo? Should we smash it?”
“No. Let’s just leave it. Consider it a gift to anyone who makes it up to 5,000 meters.”
“What? I thought this was a competition.”
“We don’t need to stoop to sabotaging others, do we?”
“…Hmm. True, that makes sense.”
There’s no need to stoop to petty competition.
Gerkhen smiled faintly as their voices faded away.
The next day.
A team of four college students reached the same altitude of 5,000 meters.
“lt’s 5,000 meters!”
Though many had passed this way long before them, for these students, it was an unexpected achievement.
Mid-tier students from a provincial university, they had nothing remarkable about them, but they had clung together, enduring through sheer willpower over two days… It was almost a miracle.
“5,000 meters, it’s 5,000 meters!”
“Ughhh”
“Waaahhh”
They hugged each other and cried for a long while.
But soon, the cold reality set in.
“…lf we plant a flag and then leave, it might get taken, right?”
“ P ro ba b ly”
The format of the first test was essentially 'climb as high as possible,’ but it was ultimately similar to a game of capturing flags.
Even if I climb high, if someone takes the flag, their score increases.
Many had their flags stolen without climbing far up.
“…Can we last the remaining time?”
One of the four muttered dejectedly.
There were still three days until the end of the test, but they were out of food, exhausted, and the cold and environment were far more brutal.
Encountering a wild beast now would almost certainly mean death.
“Let’s plant the flag and head down.”
“What if it gets stolen?”
“…Let’s hide it. We have to leave it to luck. Staying here any longer could kill US.”
“…”
They fell silent, heavy-hearted. They had worked hard, very hard, to reach 5,000 meters, so now should they just leave it to luck?
Or how could they leave it to luck after working so hard to get here?
“Alright. Let's hide the flag”
After some deliberation, they lifted the flag and—
“Hey, guys!”
Suddenly, one of them scanning the area pointed somewhere and shouted.
“Look over there!”
“What, what?”
“There! There!”
“Where?”
“Ah, just follow me!”
One ran ahead, and the other three followed.
“An igloo!”
It was a neatly made igloo nestled in the crevice of the mountain range.
“ls there someone inside?”
“lt doesn’t seem like it.”
“Let’s go in and check.”
The knight who discovered the igloo entered first. Inside the cozy interior, on the ground, there was a pot containing half-eaten bear soup.
“There’s soup? And it’s even half left.”
“Really?”
“…Hey. Let’s go. There must be an owner then.”
“The owner is… huh?”
One of them picked up a piece of paper placed on the ground.
“…There’s a note here. Take a look.”
He then showed it to the others.
[Feel free to use and rest comfortably before you leave.]
“…”
“…”
“…”
The four of them were silent for a while, just standing still.
Then, looking at each other, they nodded, feeling touched.
In this world, there are many obsessed with competition, and many who believe they must bring others down to survive.
But here was someone with a kind, warm heart.
“This is what makes the world worth living in.”
They took out a burner and placed the pot with the bear soup on it.
Click-
“…This is going to be delicious.”
“There’s meat in it too.”
As the bear soup bubbled over the flame, the four of them smiled, a mix of emotion and tears in their eyes.
