The day of the expedition had arrived.
The large plaza just inside the capital's northern gate was a scene of organized chaos. Dozens of adventurers, hired mercenaries, and logistical staff bustled about, loading supplies into a long convoy of sturdy carriages, each pulled by a pair of strong horses.
The air was thick with the smell of leather, hay, and the nervous energy of a mission about to begin.
Hayato and Lila walked into the plaza, a strange and unassuming pair amidst the heavily armed and armored adventurers. They made their way to the very back of the long convoy, where the final, most heavily reinforced carriage stood.
Standing beside it, deep in a quiet, serious conversation, were the leaders of the expedition: Ayaka, Kerina, Lenna, and Riko. They looked up as Hayato and Lila approached.
"You're here," Kerina said, her voice a simple acknowledgment. "Good. We were just finalizing the route."
Ayaka gave a small, polite nod, while Lenna's analytical gaze swept over them, a silent assessment. Riko, just grunted. "About time. Let's get moving."
Ayaka looked at Hayato, her gaze lingering for a moment too long. There was an unspoken question in her eyes, a flicker of recognition that she couldn't quite place.
Lila noticed the intense stare and glanced between the two of them, her brow furrowed in confusion.
Ayaka broke the silence, her voice crisp and authoritative as she turned to the group. "I'll lead the route from the front carriage. You all stay behind."
Lenna immediately saw the flaw in that plan. "The rear carriage will be too heavy with five people, It will slow the entire convoy. I will move to the middle carriage to balance the weight."
With Lenna gone, Kerina turned her attention back to Hayato and Lila, her expression all business. "Alright, you two. We're in the rear. Get in."
Riko was already perched on the back of the carriage, her expression impatient.
The driver, a grizzled-looking man with a thick beard, leaned over from his seat. "Come on, get in!" he called out. "And sorry about the mess in there. It's packed to the gills with extra supplies."
Kerina swung herself up into the carriage with a practiced ease. Hayato followed, then helped a hesitant Lila climb inside, pulling the heavy door shut behind them.
The inside of the carriage was cramped, a chaotic jumble of supply sacks and wooden crates. The four of them found uncomfortable spots on the floor, bracing themselves as the carriage lurched forward, joining the slow, heavy procession leaving the city.
"So, how long is this ride going to be?" Lila asked, her voice a little nervous as she held onto a crate to keep her balance.
Riko, who was already leaning against a pile of sacks with her eyes closed, answered without opening them. "About a full day's ride, if the horses don't get too tired."
Hayato looked around the cramped space, then at the powerful adventurers sharing it with him. "Why are we all in the back? Shouldn't the strongest members be at the front, protecting the convoy?"
Kerina, who was checking the straps on her gauntlets, looked up at him with a sharp, knowing smile. "No," she corrected, her voice firm. "You're thinking like a soldier. We're a wolf pack. The strongest ones always stay in the back."
Riko, sensing Hayato's tactical assessment of their position, added another piece of information. "Besides. we're not the only high-rankers. There's another A-Rank party in the carriage directly in front of us."
Curious, Hayato leaned forward, peering through the small, grimy window at the front of their cramped carriage. He could just make out the interior of the carriage ahead of them. It was more spacious, and seated inside were four adventurers. They were laughing loudly, passing a wineskin between them. Three of them looked like seasoned mercenaries, but the fourth, a man with a confident, booming laugh, seemed to radiate a faint, powerful aura that even Hayato could sense. It was a feeling of contained, potent energy.
Riko, who had been leaning against the supply sacks with her eyes closed, opened with sharp gaze that is fixed directly on Lila.
Lila felt the weight of Riko's stare and looked up, her expression a mixture of fear and defiance. "I'm not going to steal anything," she blurted out, her voice a defensive whisper.
Riko's eyes closed again, a small, humorless smirk on her face. "I never said you were."
Splash! a whip from the lead carriage and a chorus of shouts from the drivers, the long convoy lurched into motion.
The heavy wheels of the carriages groaned against the cobblestones, the sound a low, powerful rumble that echoed through the northern gate. The horses snorted, their breath misting in the cool morning air as they strained to pull their heavy loads.
One by one, the carriages began their slow, steady procession, moving out from the familiar safety of the capital's massive walls and into the wild, untamed lands of the north. The mood in our cramped carriage was quiet, a stark contrast to the boisterous laughter from the A-Rank party in the carriage ahead.
We were a wolf pack, as Kerina had said.
As the carriage rumbled on, the initial silence gave way to the low, analytical murmur of Riko's voice. She had decided, in her own way, to provide a briefing.
"The Northern Reach isn't just cold," she began, her eyes closed as she recalled the memory. "It's a land of harsh, vertical stages. First, you cross the Green Tundra, which is manageable. But then you reach the Glacier's Teeth, a mountain range of pure, ancient ice."
She took a slow breath. "That's where the real struggle began for us. The cold there is unnatural. It's not just weather; it's a curse. It seeps into your bones, drains your stamina, and makes every step a battle. We lost half our supply train just trying to find a stable path through the shifting ice."
She opened her eyes, her gaze distant and grim. "And as we got closer to the fortress, the land itself started to fight back. The Ice King's power... it was changing everything. We saw forests that had been flash-frozen, their trees like glass. Rivers had stopped in their tracks, turned to solid ice in an instant. That's the kind of power we're walking back into."
Kerina, who had been listening intently to Riko's grim report, shook her head. "That's not the north I remember. The old stories, the reports from a decade ago... they all say the same thing."
She looked from Riko to the others in the cramped, dark carriage. "The Northern Reach has always been harsh, yes. But it was just a natural, brutal cold. This unnatural, cursed frost that changes the land itself... that's new. That's the Ice King's work."
Riko gave a sharp, definitive nod, her expression grim. "Correct," she said, picking up where Kerina had left off. "He's called the Ice King for a reason. His power isn't just controlling ice; it's about changing the very nature of the land itself."
She looked at the others, her voice a low, serious lecture. "If he leaves a fragment of his cursed frost anywhere, if he so much as touches a piece of the landscape, that area becomes a part of his domain. And once you're inside his domain, like it or not, you're playing by his rules. He can freeze you from the inside out, no matter how warm your clothes are."
While Kerina and Riko continued their grim discussion of the cursed north, I tuned them out. I had the core data: the land itself was a weapon, and the enemy had a powerful, unknown ability. The rest was just details.
My attention turned inward. I focused, and the familiar, clean black interface of the system appeared in the air before me, a secret only I could see. I navigated to a tab I hadn't looked at before.
[ QUEST LOG ]
It was completely, utterly empty.
That's strange, I thought, a new kind of unease settling in. Back at the Guild, when I took the Storm Wolf subjugation request, I had expected something to happen. A notification. A pop-up window saying 'Quest Accepted'. Something. But there had been nothing.
It was the same when I arrived in this world. The system had given me a single objective: [ Survive ]. That was it. No tutorial, no main story quest, no side missions.
This wasn't a game. The world had game-like elements, like my status screen and skills, but it wasn't governed by them. It was just... a system of physics, and I was an anomaly who had been granted a strange user interface to interpret it. A sense of isolation washed over me. I was completely on my own here.
To Be Continued.