The world had frozen over without warning.

Average global temperatures plummeted to sixty below in an instant, and as if that weren’t enough, massive amounts of snow poured down day after day.

Cities buried under snow in the blink of an eye.

The New America Republic was no exception.

"Haaah."

Walfred watched as the breath he’d just exhaled shattered like ice in midair. Moisture had collected on the inside of his goggles, but he didn’t dare wipe it off.

The moment he pulled his hand from his pocket, his fingers would feel like they were being severed off.

It had been six months since the world ended up this way.

There was only one reason for it.

[Failure to Conquer the ’Black Gate’ in Antarctica]

The S-rank hunters who had been called humanity’s strongest had thrown themselves at it in droves, only to be wiped out to the last man. After that, the gate broke loose, bringing about the worst catastrophe imaginable.

A cold so vicious and absolute it could freeze the Earth’s atmosphere solid in moments. From that day on, human civilization was, quite literally, frozen stiff.

"Hey! You there!"

"Quit dragging your feet and get moving already!"

A sharp shout slammed into his eardrums.

Walfred, who had been lost in thought, snapped to attention and turned his head. Standing there were rough-looking men bundled up in heavy winter gear.

"At this rate the sun’s gonna set on us."

"You wanna freeze to death out there?"

The Awakened, commonly known as hunters.

Most of them were low-rank hunters, no better than F-rank or E-rank, but among the unawakened, not a single soul could stand up to them.

’Enhanced physical abilities.’

The blessing granted upon awakening as a hunter.

Their bodies were three or four times stronger than an average person’s, and they were far more resistant to the cold.

On top of that, the savage monsters that had started appearing outside after the Antarctica gate broke loose could only be put down by hunters.

’Meanwhile, the unawakened...’

Got treated as either pack mules or meat shields.

It was infuriating, but there was nothing to be done about it. Now that the world had become what it was, the new way of things was simple: if you had no power, what you had got taken from you.

He was standing there sighing in silence when it happened.

A booming voice rang out.

"Search team, fall in!"

At the hunter’s call, the twenty men assigned to today’s search team gathered in one spot.

Walfred was one of them.

"The gate’s opening soon. If you don’t wanna freeze to death out there, get yourselves squared away."

Today’s mission for the search team was food scavenging.

The job was to dig through the supermarkets and convenience stores buried beneath the snow inside the city and bring back anything edible.

It was the most dangerous work, with the highest mortality rate, but Walfred had no choice.

If he couldn’t pay the shelter fees to the hunters who ran the place, he’d be tossed out naked into the cold.

And then it happened.

Clank! Creeeak!

The interior wall door of the shelter swung open and a group of about a dozen men and women came walking out. Walfred and the others all turned their eyes toward them.

Unlike the search team, who looked clumsy in their layered-up padding, these people wore relatively thin, functional cold-weather gear.

"Wow, really? So what happened?"

"What do you think? I took care of all of them."

"You’re amazing. So cool."

Unlike the search team with their grim faces, these people kept up cheerful, easy conversation. Soon sighs of envy broke out from every corner.

"Ah. The gate work crew."

"Lucky bastards. They don’t even have to go outside."

There was only one reason the search team envied the gate work crew. The inside of a gate, unlike the world outside, wasn’t frozen at all.

It varied a little from gate to gate, but most gates had environments not all that different from the world before everything froze over.

Maybe that was why?

The hunters had set up shelters near the gates, then carved out the interiors of the gates and turned them into farms.

A so-called food production base.

And those people were the laborers heading off to work there, hand-picked by the hunters.

"I could do a good job too if they’d just let me..."

"Forget it. You know you can’t even get into a gate without serious connections."

Just like he said, getting into the gate work crew required substantial connections with the hunters.

Either you offered up bribes, or you offered up your body.

For Walfred, who had nothing to his name but a healthy body, neither was an option.

"Open it!"

A thunderous shout rang out, and the triple steel doors blocking the shelter’s main entrance began to open one after another in sequence.

A short while later.

Whooooosh!

A bone-cutting wind came rushing into the shelter. The faces of the search team, who would have to head out into it any moment now, twisted up like they’d swallowed something rotten.

"Ugh, ugh ugh!"

"Damn it, freezing my ass off again today."

The cold seeping through the gaps in his padding made his body shake of its own accord. Walfred instinctively hunched his shoulders and adjusted his goggles.

’Get it together.’

From here on out, spacing out meant dying.

One mistake and you died. Fall behind and same thing.

With his face set in grim determination, Walfred stepped out into the blizzard.

---

Whooooosh!

The howling, screaming blizzard mixed with the crunch of footsteps in the snow filled the air all around. Walfred pushed forward through snow that came up to his waist.

The destination was a warehouse-style discount store about half a mile from the shelter. The convenience stores nearby had been picked clean ages ago, so this was the best they could do.

"Huff, hahhh!"

"Hooo! Damn it...!"

Ragged breathing came from every direction.

Everyone was clearly exhausted, but they couldn’t stop. The moment they stopped, the sweat would cool and steal their body heat, and that meant death.

’This is so damn far.’

It was a distance you could’ve covered in ten minutes back before the world froze, but in conditions like this with snow pouring down, it took well over half an hour.

How long had they been walking?

Through the swirling snow, the shape of a massive building emerged, draped in icicles. It was the warehouse store, their destination.

Creeeak! Thud!

The moment they stepped inside the store.

Walfred and the rest of the search team scattered without exchanging a single word. It was to cut down on wasted time.

They might have escaped the blizzard, but that didn’t mean the cold had gone away.

’There’s still quite a bit left.’

Cans rolled around the half-shattered shelves. Walfred’s eyes lit up as he started shoving cans into his backpack as fast as his hands could move.

This much would more than fill his quota.

Which meant he wouldn’t have to come out scavenging for food again for at least two days. He kept stuffing cans in until his backpack was nearly bursting, when suddenly...

Crunch!

Footsteps.

Not just one set, but several.

’What the?’

I’m the only one assigned to canned goods, aren’t I?

Walfred tilted his head and looked toward the source of the footsteps. And in that moment, a sound that made his blood run cold reached his ears.

"Grrrrrr..."

The low, rumbling growl of a beast.

In an instant, the busy noise from all around fell dead silent. Walfred and the rest of the search team all turned their eyes toward where the growl had come from.

And a moment later.

The source of the growl revealed itself.

"Hngh! Th-that’s...!"

"S-snow Wolves?!"

F-rank monsters. Snow Wolves.

After the Antarctica Black Gate broke loose, they’d become one of the iconic monsters that started showing up in the world.

The Snow Wolves, with bodies as big as compact cars, rolled their lantern-bright eyes around as they sized up the search team.

"Hraaaaaargh!"

The sizing up didn’t last long.

The moment they realized there were no hunters in the search team, they all charged at once.

"Oh, oh shit...!"

"Aaaaaargh!"

"Everyone run!"

Screams erupted and chaos broke loose.

People scrambled out of their minds and ran for the exit, abandoning the backpacks they’d been filling with food.

Even so, not everyone made it out away from the Snow Wolves.

Crunch!

"Aaaargh! S-someone help!"

The man closest to them was snatched up in the wolves’ jaws and dragged off in an instant. Crimson blood splashed across the frozen floor along with his agonized screams.

But not a single person looked back.

They just felt grateful that the victim had bought them a few precious seconds by tying up the wolves’ attention, and kept running.

"Damn hunters!"

"They said they’d cleaned out all the monsters in this area...!"

If the search team’s role was securing food and supplies for survival, the hunters’ job was sweeping out the monsters around the shelter.

And recently, the hunters had said it.

That they’d wiped out every single monster within a two-mile radius of the shelter.

But the reality was different.

"Hraaaaaaargh!"

The Snow Wolves charging after them.

Walfred and the search team ran for their lives, but there was no shaking a Snow Wolf on snow.

"Ah, aaaaargh!"

"Help me! Aaaaaargh!"

Agonized screams kept ringing out one after another.

The grisly sound of flesh and bone being chewed up.

Leaving the deaths of his teammates behind, Walfred ran for everything he was worth.

"Huff! Hahhh!"

His heart felt like it might explode at any second.

Each ragged breath sucked in air so cold it froze his lungs from the inside. But he couldn’t stop. The moment he stopped, he’d die.

’The shelter! If I can just make it to the shelter...!’

If he could at least get to where the shelter was visible, he’d find a way to survive somehow. The hunters would have to do something.

And then it happened.

Whoosh! Thwack!

Along with the sound of something cutting through the wind, the head of the teammate running beside him went flying.

A Snow Wolf had closed in right on top of them.

Walfred’s eyes went wide.

’I’m gonna die!’

His instincts were screaming the warning.

He was next.

He was going to die at this rate. But his legs wouldn’t listen. His feet kept sinking deep into the snow.

And then.

Whoosh!

"Huh?"

The ground beneath his feet vanished.

It was like he’d stepped on thin air.

Then the floor crumbled away beneath him and his whole body lost balance. What opened up before Walfred was a hole that dropped down into bottomless darkness.

"Aaaaaaaargh!"

Walfred’s body went tumbling head over heels.

His vision spun in circles.

In no time he’d dropped dozens of feet, and when his back slammed into the ground, the impact tore a scream out of him.

Crash!

"Ack!"

Everything went black with the impact.

How much time had passed?

"Ngggh..."

Walfred groaned as he opened his eyes.

Every part of his body ached like it had been broken.

Thankfully, the pile of snow that had built up on the floor cushioned the fall enough that he hadn’t died on impact.

But he couldn’t relax.

’How far down did I fall?’

Walfred looked up.

A faint light filtered down through the impossibly distant hole, but it was high. Way too high.

Easily a hundred feet deep.

And the walls were nothing but solid blocks of ice. Climbing back up bare-handed was impossible.

"Hey! Anyone up there?!"

He shouted with everything he had, but only echoes came back.

No howls of Snow Wolves, no signs of his teammates running from them.

That told Walfred everything he needed to know.

That nobody knew he’d fallen down here. No, even if they did, the chances of a rescue team coming for him were slim to none.

"Hooo, hooo!"

The terror of being completely cut off.

The cold freezing his lungs from the inside made his breathing turn ragged.

But it didn’t last long.

His senses were going numb fast.

At first his fingertips and toes had ached, but now there was nothing at all. Proof that his body temperature was plummeting.

’...So cold.’

It wasn’t just cold.

It hurt. Like sharp needles being driven into every inch of his body. Walfred curled up as tight as he could and shivered. Trying to fight the cold any way he could.

Time kept slipping by like that, when something strange happened.

’What the? Why is it so hot?’

Just moments ago he’d been so cold his senses were going numb, but suddenly a burning heat was rising up from somewhere deep inside his body.

Like he’d walked into a sauna wearing his padding.

Unable to bear the heat scorching him from within, Walfred yanked off the heavy padding and threw it aside. The vest and thermal underwear stacked underneath went flying too.

"Ugh, it’s so hot...!"

Even with everything off his upper body and his bare skin exposed to the air, the heat wouldn’t go away.

If anything, it got hotter.

Maybe that was why? His throat went dry along with it.

Unable to bear the burning thirst, Walfred started shoveling fistfuls of the snow piled on the floor into his mouth.

Crunch crunch!

The cold snow felt nice in his mouth for a second, but then the thirst only got worse.

As he kept clawing through the snow like that, his fingertips brushed against something.

Clink.

A glass bottle filled with a clear liquid.

A small, crudely shaped glass bottle that gave off a strange, otherworldly glow. The liquid hadn’t frozen at all even though it was buried in snow and ice.

Anyone with a moment to think would have known something was off, but Walfred had no rationality left in him to make that judgment.

Glug, glug!

The cool liquid slid down his throat.

The taste was so refreshing it sent a sharp jolt through his head.

And in that moment, like magic, the thirst that had been tormenting him vanished without a trace. Just as he was feeling relieved, thinking he might actually live...

"Gck?!"

A sudden, blinding agony slammed into him.

Like razor-sharp blades of ice were tearing through his insides.

His stomach twisted itself into knots and his muscles clenched and unclenched on their own. It felt like the blood flowing through his veins had been replaced with ice water.

"Nggghhh! Aaaaargh!"

Walfred thrashed across the floor.

His body curled up like a shrimp.

The agony of his bones being ground to dust and every single cell being torn apart and rebuilt was driving him out of his mind.

What the hell did I just drink?

The regret hit him too late, but there was no taking it back. As his consciousness teetered on the edge of the unbearable pain, threatening to slip away...

Ding!

A clear chime rang out in his head.

At the same time, the pain that had been tormenting him vanished all at once, and something he couldn’t believe appeared right in front of his eyes.

A translucent blue window floating in midair.

-----

[Eden System Activated]

[Ingestion of ’** Essence (Epic)’ confirmed.]

[Determining compatibility...]

[Awakening complete.]

-----

"What the, this is..."

Awakened? Me?

The moment he saw the text floating in front of him.

Walfred’s pupils trembled like an earthquake had struck.