Chapter 43: What Hatches in a Dragon’s Nest

’First I need to secure a safe spot.’

Walfred moved slowly, using the ice spear like an ice axe. As he was observing the area around the ice wall, something suddenly caught his eye.

A hollowed-out space in one corner of the ice wall.

It looked like a crevice. At that size, even if he couldn’t lie down, he could at least sit.

’Let me catch my breath there for now.’

Walfred moved quickly.

The crevice in the ice wall he reached afterward was far wider than he’d thought. Above all, he could see a fairly deep passage stretching out long toward the interior.

When he moved along the passage, he soon saw a network of paths tangled as intricately as an anthill.

After looking at this for a moment, Walfred swung his ice spear and struck the ceiling, the walls, and the floor.

Whoosh! Skreeeek!

It didn’t leave so much as a scratch.

Walfred frowned.

"...Damnably hard."

This meant he couldn’t break the passage to forcibly change its layout. But going back outside and moving along the ice wall was dangerous too.

In the end, there was only one option.

"Guess I’ve got no choice but to keep going forward."

Walfred decided to move along the passage.

Fortunately, the entire ice wall held a faint blue glow, so he had plenty of visibility.

How long had he walked like that?

The sound of wind came from somewhere.

’The wind blowing means...’

It probably meant he was getting close to an exit.

Walfred quickened his pace.

When he reached the end of the long passage, an wide-open space appeared. It was an enormous space, presumed to be the interior of the ice mountain.

But he couldn’t go outside.

Whoooosh!

"Ugh! What kind of wind is this...!"

Because an immense blizzard was raging outside. A biting wind of a full one hundred forty-eight below zero. Along with a pain like his flesh was being sliced, his breath caught.

If he stepped outside the passage now, he wouldn’t last even a few minutes. In the end, Walfred decided to wait until the wind died down to some degree.

Just then.

"What’s that...?"

Walfred spotted something unusual.

A mound of snow piled up near the exit. Snow tinged with a faint blue glow, snow that somehow looked a little different from the snow he’d seen before.

’Should I eat some of that, then?’

He was getting thirsty just at that moment.

The blue tinge was a little unusual, but it was probably just light leaking from beyond the ice wall reflecting off the snow crystals.

Walfred scooped up a handful of snow.

The moment he tossed it into his mouth and started chewing, he reflexively cocked his head.

’Hm? Something’s a little different?’

The texture of the snow was rather unique.

How to put it, it had more density than the snow he’d eaten up to now? It felt like chewing fine ice shards and crystals rather than snow.

Not that it’d make any difference in earning experience.

Gulp!

With that thought, he swallowed the snow.

But in that instant.

A notification he’d never expected appeared.

[You have consumed snow of pure mana.]

[Stamina is greatly recovered.]

[Bonus experience acquired.]

[Experience: +8.92% (bonus +50.00%)]

"...?"

Wait, what does that mean?

Walfred wore a blank expression.

A moment later, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and checked the message again.

"Bonus experience is..."

Fifty percent? Not five percent?

"...Is this for real?"

Even after rubbing his eyes and looking again, it was for real.

Walfred hurriedly checked his status.

And he could see that his experience really had filled up by over 50%. Just like the first time he’d eaten snow after acquiring [Frost Feast].

The instant he realized this.

’I have to eat all of it!’

Walfred’s eyes blazed fiercely.

And he began frantically shoveling the remaining snow into his mouth. It was far colder than ordinary snow, so his mouth went numb, but he didn’t stop.

Because every time he ate, his level went up.

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[You’ve reached Level 30!]

A little while later.

Having devoured all the snow, Walfred reached level 30 in an instant. He felt the snow’s cold leave his head throbbing, but he couldn’t have cared less.

"Whew, finally..."

A smile spread across his lips.

At the same time, Bauer’s words from the past came to mind.

That reaching level 30 unlocked the one-on-one chat function among the Hunter Community’s features.

Walfred immediately connected to the community.

To let Bauer, and Jonah, know that he was safe.

But.

[Connecting...]

[...]

[Failed. Community access unavailable]

"What...?"

A message he’d never expected appeared.

Just as Walfred wore a dumbfounded expression, an additional notification appeared.

-----

[Notice]

[Within Forbidden Zones, some functions of the Eden System are disabled. Please leave the Forbidden Zone and attempt to connect to the community again.]

-----

"...Damn it, nothing’s going right."

Walfred spat out a curse.

He’d never imagined there would be a restriction on community access. A sigh escaped him on its own out of frustration.

In the meantime, he saw that the madly raging blizzard and biting wind had died down considerably.

’Let me move first and think later.’

Since he couldn’t stay here forever.

Walfred quickly dashed outside.

It was still a harsh cold, but far more bearable than before. It was probably thanks to the repeated level-ups just now having restored his condition to some degree.

As he was moving through the open space.

"What’s that? A statue?"

He saw a sight of ice statues filling the open expanse all around. If there was one thing they had in common, it was that every statue was in the shape of a person.

Since it was on his way anyway, he drew close and examined a statue. A moment later, Walfred reeled back in shock.

"...!"

They weren’t statues. They were people.

People frozen with terror-stricken expressions, still clad in thick winter gear. Even down to each individual layer of skin tissue, they were vividly preserved.

It was as if time had stopped exactly at the moment they were alive. At that, Walfred realized.

’So that’s it. These people are...’

The search team that had been dispatched in the past to investigate the White Dome, the one Bauer had mentioned. Gazing at them, Walfred clenched his fists tight.

’If I don’t want to end up like that, I have to get out fast.’

Sure that he’d meet the same end if he kept lingering here, Walfred quickened his pace.

After that, when he crossed the vast ice plain and pressed further forward, an enormous cavern revealed itself before his eyes.

A space so vast it was like several soccer fields combined.

And at its center sat something that overwhelmed the eye the instant he saw it.

"What is that...?"

A massive ice crystal holding a blue glow.

But he couldn’t approach carelessly. The aura radiating from the crystal was no ordinary thing.

"Don’t tell me the Frost Dragon is inside it?"

Going by its size, that probably wasn’t the case.

Surely dragons were supposed to be as enormous as mountains, but the ice crystal before him was at most just a little bigger than a bus.

"More to the point, where’s the exit?"

Walfred looked around.

And the moment he was passing by the side of the ice crystal.

Crrrk! Crrk!

A strange sound came.

The source of the sound was the ice crystal.

At that, Walfred looked at the crystal. And at the same time, a large crack ran across the crystal’s surface.

Crack! Craaack!

"Wh-what is it?"

No, why is this suddenly cracking?

Walfred was flustered. But regardless of how he felt, the cracks only grew larger and larger.

And then.

Shatter!

At last the crystal shattered into pieces.

Sharp ice fragments flew in all directions, and the interior of the crystal, which had been hidden, came into clear view.

What lay inside was...

"...A lizard?"

A lizard curled up like a fetus.

But it wasn’t an ordinary lizard.

Its body, about the size of a small dog, and its entire form covered in hard, snow-white scales, looked rather out of the ordinary.

Above all, there was a separate point that was peculiar.

’Do ordinary lizards usually have wings?’

White wings sprouting in a half-folded state.

Just as he was gazing at it as if observing it.

Something suddenly flashed through his mind.

’Now that I think about it...’

This was the Nest of the Frost Dragon.

And surely entities like dragons looked like winged lizards.

In that case, what was this lizard’s true identity?

"Don’t tell me, a baby dragon...!?"

Only then did all the scattered puzzle pieces finally come together. Having at last realized the truth, Walfred opened his eyes wide in shock.

In that moment.

[The aura of ’■■’ has been detected.]

[Target: Essence of □□]

[Target: □□ of the Frost Dragon]

[Resonance activation conditions met]

A system message scrambled with unreadable characters appeared. But there was one thing he could make out for certain.

[Essence of □□]

To Walfred, it was a name he could never forget.

Because it was the lucky potion that had instantly awakened him, a non-Awakened, into a frost-attribute hunter.

But beyond that, the rest was something he couldn’t make any sense of at all. Walfred glared at the crystal with eyes half wariness, half question.

In that moment.

[Resonance is beginning.]

With a brief system message as the signal.

Immense pain bored into Walfred’s head.

"Kak!"

Pain that shook the inside of his skull.

Walfred staggered with a short cry, then pitched forward. His vision was instantly dyed pure white.