Humanity is dying relentlessly, day in and day out.
The property damage is almost impossible to estimate.
It was a disaster caused by the existence of magical beasts.
So, where did the magical beasts come from?
"Haa…"
Pushing aside my dizzy head, I looked around.
Cold breath escaped my lips.
The sky was full of gray clouds, and the surroundings were endlessly covered with fields of white snow.
It was the first time I had ever seen a snowy landscape like this.
"Ugh…"
Just then, Choi Hyena regained her senses, complaining of a headache.
She even wakes up later than me.
She was later than me for our appointment earlier, too.
Of course, she wasn't late for the appointment, but once someone gets on your bad side, you want to nitpick at everything they do.
"Wh-where is this…?"
Choi Hyena seemed mesmerized by the grandeur of the snowy field, a stark contrast to the concrete jungle she had been in, with cold breath and swirling snow.
"Where else could it be?"
At this point, I couldn't deny or pretend not to know what had happened.
"It's inside a gate."
***
Gates, along with magical beasts, are one of the disasters that have threatened humanity since ancient times.
Before detectors were invented, it was impossible to predict when and where a gate would appear.
On top of that, after a certain amount of time, they even spew out monsters called magical beasts.
What a pain in the ass.
Moreover, even with the invention of detectors, it's not like there were no casualties from gates.
Even in modern times, the number of casualties caused by magical beasts was still immense and could not be ignored.
Even with detectors, they couldn't cover the entire Earth, and it was quite common for magical beasts that had escaped from countries already ruined by gates to attack the residents of nearby villages.
Undiscovered gates were also a major factor threatening the lives of ordinary people.
And there was another special type of gate like the undiscovered gate.
"…An isolated gate."
Known as the worst disaster for ordinary people, isolated gates suck in all living things in their vicinity upon appearing.
What's even more vicious is that immediately after sucking in living things, the gate itself locks itself, preventing external rescue and internal escape.
Isolated gates open approximately one week later.
During that time, the probability of an ordinary person surviving the harsh environment and ferocious magical beasts inside the gate was almost zero.
Of course, you could escape by destroying the core inside the gate, but you'd have a better chance of surviving by digging a hole and hiding underneath it. Because the boss guards the core of the gate.
"A gate… something like that can't be…"
"Stop denying reality and get up already?"
Leaving behind Choi Hyena, who I couldn't tell if she was denying reality or just despairing, I surveyed the surroundings once more.
'Hoo…'
It's cold.
It's unbelievably cold.
It must be well below -30 degrees Celsius.
On top of that, the blizzard blowing like a knife was lowering the perceived temperature even further.
It was even colder because I was wearing relatively thin clothes, a short-sleeved shirt and jeans.
'Putting the cold aside, what's the gate's rank?'
Unfortunately, with such a terrible environment, it couldn't be a low rank. But if it was C-rank, there would be some hope of escape.
But if it was higher than that…
"…Damn it."
First, to avoid encountering magical beasts as much as possible, I needed to find a place to use as a hideout.
The direction didn't matter.
I had seen in textbooks that the inside of a gate isn't like a vast planet like Earth, but rather a piece of a different dimension that has been cut off and placed there.
Since the starting point was a snowy field, no matter where I went, it would just be a snow-covered field with a blizzard. But if I was lucky, I might be able to find a forest or cave to escape the blizzard.
A place that fits the theme of the snowy field would appear.
'…For now, it's better to turn away from the blizzard.'
If I went in the direction of the blizzard, the cold, sharp wind would tear the skin off my face.
Of course, turning away from the blizzard didn't mean it wasn't cold. It was just as cold.
The only good thing was that I had a fur coat in my inventory, and if I circulated the fire element through my magic circuit, it wouldn't be cold enough to die.
"W-wait a minute!"
"?"
I turned my head to see Choi Hyena standing there, shivering.
She looks kind of like a rabbit.
"Wh-where are you going? If this is a gate, we should wait for rescue!"
"…Did you sleep through the gate lessons at school?"
"I, I… Achoo! H-I didn't go to school…?"
Ah.
I thought she was just rude because she didn't get any family education, but she didn't get any school education either.
I suddenly feel sorry for Choi Hyena.
"Wh-what! Why are you looking at me like that… Achoo!!"
"It's nothing."
In fact, Choi Hyena didn't go to school because of magic education, but she was already a prodigy who had completed higher education at the age of 14.
"This is an isolated gate. We can't escape or wait for rescue right now."
I don't have good feelings towards Choi Hyena, but I couldn't just leave a pitiful girl who didn't go to school behind.
"What…?"
"There are only two ways to escape from here. Either we endure until the gate opens, or we break the core of the gate ourselves."
As I said before, if the gate's rank exceeds C, it's impossible for the two of us to break the core.
"…A week."
"I'll say it in advance, you know we can't catch the gate boss with just the two of us, right?"
"I know that!"
The boss is the one who protects the core, the source of the gate.
The boss, who has a different level of strength than the elite creatures I caught before, is an opponent that two mages, who are back-line classes, can never catch.
'…I need to move before the sun goes down.'
To get through tonight safely, I didn't have time to be standing around like this.
I had to keep moving non-stop in the direction I was originally going.
"Wh-where are you going?"
Choi Hyena grabbed me.
"What, are you going to keep staying here then?"
"…"
After that, there was no conversation between us.
We just kept moving forward aimlessly, leaving footprints on the snow-covered field where our feet sank up to our ankles.
How much time had passed?
Thud, I heard something collapse behind me.
"…Choi Hyena?"
Choi Hyena's lips, which had fallen on the snowfield, were pale blue, and her body was as cold as ice.
Wasn't she a fire mage? The Choi family of Seongbuk is famous for handling powerful flames even among the elementalists?
If you think about that, she should be more resistant to the cold than I am.
"Damn it."
Even though she's a rude brat with nothing good about her except her face and body, I couldn't just leave her here.
Even if she is rude, she didn't do anything wrong enough to be left to freeze to death.
I quickly took out a fur coat from my inventory and put it on her, then carried her on my back as is.
"I need to find a place to rest."
I can't even light a fire in this blizzard.
If I tried to find a shelter at the same pace as before, Choi Hyena would die before that.
Whoosh-
In the end, I had no choice but to run.
The reason I hadn't run until now was to conserve my mana and stamina and to avoid being detected by magical beasts.
But now I didn't have time to worry about those things.
It wasn't easy to run on the snowfield, but now I had no choice but to keep running.
At the same time, I kept looking around.
But here's snow, there's snow too. In this all-white world, I couldn't see any places like forests with trees.
"Ugh, ugh…"
"Choi Hyena! Wake up!"
I had no choice but to increase my speed even more.
Whether it was due to some kind of luck, I had been running for quite a while, but I hadn't seen a single magical beast.
It was a miracle.
And as if another miracle was happening, not long after, I was able to find a small cave under a fairly steep cliff.
"There it is."
I immediately changed direction and ran towards the cave.
It was closer than I thought, so it didn't take long to reach the cave.
But the inside of the cave was shallower than I thought. Even if I went all the way to the back, the cold air from the outside was still coming in.
Instead, thanks to that, the misfortune of another magical beast having taken over the place didn't happen.
"It seems difficult to find another place now…"
I had no choice but to cut the tent in my inventory and block the entrance. Still, I had to make a small gap for air to pass through, so it was still cold.
However, I had to be grateful that the blizzard wasn't coming in, rather than just complaining.
Finally, I spread out the remaining tent and lit a fire.
"Choi Hyena! Hey, wake up!"
I gently patted Choi Hyena's cheek, who I carefully laid down, and called out to her, but she didn't respond.
I was worried for a moment, but fortunately, she was still breathing. However, her body was too cold.
"I don't think the tent's internal temperature control system will work."
Certainly, the latest tents have a function that automatically adjusts the internal temperature.
But that only keeps the temperature at a moderately comfortable level as an upper limit, and it can't raise the temperature enough to make you sweat.
"…I have no choice."
Choi Hyena will throw a fit later when she wakes up, but there's an item called emergency shelter in the criminal law.
I'm doing this to save her life, so if she has any shame, she shouldn't say anything to me.
I carefully took off the fur coat Choi Hyena was wearing.
And I took off the unnecessarily wide hat and cape that covered her shoulders to prevent her body temperature from being taken away by her wet clothes.
"…"
Unlike her pale face, Choi Hyena's upper chest looked warm and soft.
"Let's get a grip."
I lightly patted her cheek and focused again.
In fact, the only clothes Choi Hyena was wearing now were a thin dress and underwear that would be covering her precious parts.
It was the first time I had ever taken off a dress, so I had a little trouble, but I managed to take it off by reviving my experience with Iris.
"Wow…"
Choi Hyena's underwear, color-coordinated in red, was unbelievably sexy.
Come to think of it, neither Iris nor Cheon Yeohwa were wearing modern underwear, so this was the first time I had ever seen women's underwear.
And it was also the first time I had taken it off.
As I carefully released the hook on the back, Choi Hyena's large breasts popped out as if they had been released from a seal.
The cute nipples were, as expected, light pink.
The breasts themselves were also very pretty. Even if a master craftsman meticulously sculpted them, such a beautiful teardrop shape wouldn't come out.
Without realizing it, I caressed Choi Hyena's breasts.
The soft and bouncy texture was superb.
But unlike what I saw on the outside, they were slightly cold.
Only then did I realize the seriousness of the situation again and quickly took off her panties as well.
I almost wavered at the appearance of her tightly closed 1-shaped vulva, but I quickly took off my clothes and embraced Choi Hyena naked.
As expected, Choi Hyena's body was ice-cold.
I slowly drew up my mana to warm my body.
And so, I, who had become a human hot pack, spent the night with Choi Hyena.
Squish, squish.
Of course, until right before I fell asleep, I caressed Choi Hyena's large breasts and her buttocks, which looked like they could easily accommodate quintuplets, filling my desires.
It was the price she had to pay for calling me a beggar to my face.