The next morning.

Walfred came down from the summit of the ice mountain with Elsa. He finished the descent in an instant, just like he had on the way up, and from there he headed straight south.

To get out of the White Dome.

As he walked, Walfred asked Elsa a few things he’d been curious about.

"Elsa. Do you remember anything that happened before you fell asleep?"

"Huh? Like what?"

"For example, memories of being somewhere other than the Nest of the Frost Dragon, or meeting people besides me. That kind of thing." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The White Dome had appeared suddenly, a month ago.

And the memories from when he’d resonated with Elsa as she slept inside the crystal only went back about a month too.

That was why he was curious.

Where Elsa had come from, and how.

’If I could find out about her earlier memories...’

He’d be able to learn not only where Elsa came from, but maybe even the cause of the White Dome’s appearance.

And perhaps something about the [Essence of □□] that had awakened him as a Hunter, too.

But the answer he got back was disappointing.

"I dunno. I don’t remember!"

"...Really?"

"Yeah. Do you remember, Daddy?"

How could he?

The first time they’d even met was yesterday.

And the only memories he’d glimpsed through the resonance were from when she’d been asleep in the crystal.

Walfred shook his head.

"No, I don’t remember either."

So the question of where Elsa came from would just have to stay shelved. He tried a different question this time.

"Then do you remember the Ice Golems that helped you while you were inside the crystal?"

"Yeah! I know about those."

Thank goodness.

She remembered this one.

"Yeah? Were those Ice Golems made by you, like your servants or something? Or..."

"They were just there from the start! I don’t really know who made them."

Another dead end?

Walfred let out a heavy sigh.

’Can’t be helped.’

It wasn’t information important enough that he needed it right away. It had just been nagging at him a little.

He asked a few more questions after that, but none of them produced a clear answer.

In the end, Walfred decided to focus on getting out of the White Dome. He passed Tech Row Station and was entering a large apartment complex when it happened.

Scritch, scritch!

A strange sound came out of nowhere.

When he reflexively looked toward the source, he saw monsters shaped like giant scorpions feeding on people who had been turned into ice statues.

"That’s..."

It was a creature he’d seen on the Info/Strategy Board before.

A C-rank monster, the Poison Scorpion.

Literally a venomous scorpion beast. Normally it stayed buried in the snow-covered ground, only coming up when it found prey.

It was as big as a midsize car, and if you got poisoned by its tail you’d be incapacitated within a minute, so the advice was to fight it from a distance whenever possible.

’Are these the ones that came out alongside that gate where the Bone Drake was the boss?’

That was what the situation seemed to suggest.

Before the gate was released, the only thing that had existed in the White Dome were the Ice Golems.

Meanwhile, the Poison Scorpions had already devoured all of the ice statues. Then, all of a sudden, they raised their tails high.

"Kheeeek! Krrik!"

Their eyes turned toward Walfred and Elsa.

He couldn’t tell whether they were trying to threaten or whether they were just worked up at finding prey, but the creatures surrounded the two of them in an instant.

’Ten of them in total.’

In the past, he would have started by making a weapon with Frozen Weapon, then fought carefully, keeping them at bay with Ice Needle.

This time, the situation was different.

Walfred used a skill he’d newly learned.

"Icicle Chaser."

Crrrk! Crack!

Massive icicles formed in midair.

The number of icicles matched the number of Poison Scorpions. Walfred swept his indifferent gaze over the creatures, then gave the order to attack.

"Pursue."

The instant the word left his mouth.

The huge icicles spun furiously in place. Then, when the spin reached its peak, they shot toward their targets like guided missiles.

And then.

Boom!

Ice shards burst out along with the sound of the explosion.

There wasn’t even time to scream.

The Poison Scorpions, struck dead-on by the icicles, vanished without a trace. In their place, system alerts announced their end.

[You have obtained 9 coins.]

[You have obtained 6 coins.]

[You have obtained 7 coins...]

It was over in the blink of an eye.

Maybe it was because he’d wiped them out in a single blow?

This time, not even a warning message about the target having cold resistance appeared.

’So I can take care of C-rank in one hit.’

No wonder it ate up so much mana.

Walfred clicked his tongue in amazement.

Having gotten rid of the nuisances, Walfred set off again with Elsa. By the time they’d completely cleared the large apartment complex,

he spotted a familiar building in the distance.

’Lower Manhattan Tech District Hall.’

The place where he’d once spent a night.

But the building in front of him now was a far cry from the one in his memory.

Maybe because it had been caught up in the White Dome’s expansion, about half of it had collapsed.

As he stood there looking at it,

Grrrowl!

his stomach suddenly growled.

A sharp pang of hunger followed.

’...I’m hungry.’

Of course he was. Since entering the White Dome, he hadn’t eaten anything but snow.

Then something occurred to him.

’Right, there was a Blue Hole, wasn’t there?’

The F-rank gate at the District Hall.

He remembered people catching fish there. Walfred changed direction, squeezed through the rubble of the collapsed building, and climbed up.

’Looks like the gate’s intact.’

Fortunately, the entrance was untouched.

Just as he was about to step into the Blue Hole,

Elsa suddenly asked, curious.

"Daddy. What’s this place for?"

Ah, right, she wouldn’t know.

In response to her question, Walfred gave her a quick explanation of the gate called the Blue Hole.

Along with the fact that they’d catch some fish inside the gate, fill their stomachs, and then move on.

Elsa, though, tilted her head.

"If you’re hungry, can’t you just eat snow?"

"...That’s not enough on its own."

A Frost Dragon might be able to fill its belly just by eating snow, but Walfred was human.

After giving a vague answer,

Walfred took Elsa’s hand and entered the Blue Hole together.

And then.

"Huh?"

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

The Blue Hole he remembered was like a resort, with blazing sunlight, a sandy beach, and a deep blue sea stretching out.

But what was in front of him now...

Whooosh!

was an icy sea with a blizzard raging across it.

The sea where gentle waves had once rolled in had frozen solid into a sheet of ice, and the palm trees had turned into massive pillars of ice as well.

Why on earth had it ended up like this?

"Don’t tell me..."

It got caught up in the White Dome?