"Huh… the more I look at it, the stranger it gets."
Hugo muttered as he waved his hand through the empty air.
Step outside the designated boundary and a tremendous gale slammed into your body; step just slightly back inside and the wind stopped dead.
He'd heard stories about places where, just a few steps apart, one patch of ground was soaked by rain while another remained dry—but this was on an entirely different level.
With a blizzard raging from every direction, only the spot where Lucian's group stood remained calm.
"I honestly don't get how people with power like this ended up losing. If they'd played their cards right, they could've toppled an entire country without much trouble."
"That might be true if every mage in the world were at Master's level," Colin replied with a wry smile. "But the gap in ability among mages is far greater than you might think."
Answering Hugo's question, Colin continued:
"Even I can't cast magic of this level. Only high-ranking mages at Master's level can use it, and even then, it requires extremely thorough preparation. Master must have spent at least a dozen years getting ready."
"I heard it took exactly fourteen years," Helen added. "Before that, even Master was risking his life just to make a single trip back and forth."
"…I see."
When Helen cut in, the smile vanished from Colin's face.
The fact that he had been ostracized by his master and fellow disciples still clearly weighed on him.
For a moment, the air grew awkward—until Lucian's calm, serious voice broke in.
"Let's shelve the magic lecture. We'll have plenty of time for that later. What matters right now is finding a base where we can stop and rest along the way."
Thanks to the magic, a path had opened that allowed them to cross beyond the snowfield.
But being able to cross didn't mean they could sleep rough.
Even if it was warmer here than the surroundings, trying to sleep in this cold would leave them as frozen corpses by morning.
Since they had to keep moving for several days, they needed a base for rest and sleep.
"Helen, where's the first base? If what you said is right, we should be able to find it about now."
"We're almost there. You can see it over there."
Helen raised a finger and pointed.
At first, it looked like nothing more than a snow-covered mound, but on closer inspection, a window was jutting out from between the snowdrifts.
Only then did Lucian realize that it wasn't a hill at all, but a cabin half-buried in snow.
"—Is that really okay? Even if we clear the snow, it looks like the door'll be frozen shut."
"It's a cabin carved all over with runes to prevent freezing. Once we clear the snow, it opens surprisingly easily. Besides, we've got two mages here—no need to shovel everything by hand."
"Do we really need both of us to step in? I'll handle it, so you rest. I should get a chance to show off too."
Colin stepped forward with a gruff tone.
At the unmistakably sulky note in his senior brother's voice, Helen retreated with an awkward smile.
A moment later, standing before the snow-buried cabin, Colin raised his hand.
"Scatter."
Pashashak.
With a voice that echoed like it came from inside a cave, the packed snow broke apart and fell away in clumps.
For a cabin that had been buried under snow until just moments ago, it looked surprisingly intact.
Lucian opened the cabin door as carefully as he could.
Creeeak.
"It really isn't frozen at all."
He'd been worried that if he tried to open a frozen door, the door panel might come off by mistake—but it didn't look like that would happen at all.
Just as Helen had said, it was clearly protected against freezing by carved runes.
When Lucian stepped into the cabin, his eyes widened at the warmth he felt inside.
"It's warm. Is this also the power of runes?"
"Yes. They prevent the door from freezing and double as heating. However, the food storage is the one exception—there are no runes carved there, so please be careful."
"Food storage?"
"This box over here."
Helen walked to one corner and opened a piece of furniture that looked like a wardrobe.
Inside, fresh cuts of meat hung from hooks.
At the same time, a sharp chill poured out from within and spilled into the cabin.
"If you leave it open too long, the temperature drops, so you need to take out only what you need, quickly."
As she spoke, Helen swiftly removed a few pieces of meat and headed toward the fireplace.
Standing on the hide spread across the floor, the moment she placed the meat into the pot that had been prepared in advance, flames flared up.
Seeing the faintly glowing runes around it, Lucian clicked his tongue.
"Runes again? Just how many did he carve in here? No—how does he even know runes like these in the first place?"
Runic script was already something whose meaning had almost been forgotten due to the persecution of mages.
Even court mages only knew a handful of the most important runes used for combat.
Yet the runes glowing here clearly weren't for battle—they were closer to the everyday-life runes that had disappeared long ago.
They might not look like much, but used properly, they were knowledge that could improve the quality of life of not just nobles, but even common folk, by dozens of times.
"Master is a Magus, the highest rank among mages. And this is one of the bases he created by devoting his full strength over more than a decade—so this level of preparation is only natural."
"No, that's not what I meant—"
Lucian shook his head as he tried to properly explain to Helen, who had misunderstood his point.
They hadn't even confirmed what kind of person her master was yet—there was no need to praise him prematurely.
But Helen continued speaking, her shrugging expression unchanged.
"It's still too early for you to be this surprised. There's something even more astonishing left."
"What, does the cabin turn into a royal palace this time?"
"No. The meat turns into medicine."
"Medicine?"
Wondering what she was talking about, Lucian took a closer look at the meat Helen had just taken out—and froze.
Magic power was flowing from meat that had been butchered long ago.
***
"Mm."
"Hoo."
After tasting Helen's cooking, Lucian's group couldn't stop voicing their amazement.
It wasn't because it tasted unbelievably good, nor because it was a dish they'd never seen before.
It was clearly nothing more than an ordinary meat dish—yet it had effects similar to a miracle elixir.
"To think my magic power increases just from eating meat…"
"Then the creatures living here are basically drinking miracle elixirs every day, aren't they?"
Hugo and Raymond kept murmuring in awe as they chewed.
But Felicia swallowed her meat with an indifferent expression.
"But the amount it increases is far too slight. At this rate, even if you eat it every day, it would take ages to see the same effect as a real elixir."
She wasn't comparing it to nektar.
She meant a low-grade elixir—the kind that, with enough connections and vast funds, one might barely manage to obtain.
Even those elixirs were considered priceless by the wider world, but whether they were worth the ascetic hardship of fixing one's diet for over a decade was debatable.
It wasn't a matter of taste; you'd have to stay in an environment where meat like this was always available, which meant you couldn't freely roam battlefields either.
"If a wealthy noble eats it for health, that's one thing. But if the goal is to raise knights, it'd be better to just acquire elixirs and feed them those."
"Sir Felicia is right."
Helen nodded readily, affirming Felicia's words.
"No matter how curious the effect, it's still just beast meat. It can't be compared to elixirs, the very essence of alchemy. You'd have to consume it for over a decade just to barely match the effect of a single elixir. But—"
She set down her wooden utensil with a soft tap and continued quietly.
"The tribes living in this region eat meat like this every single day."
"…."
"They don't just hunt and select good beasts. Every beast hunted here has meat like this."
It wasn't that they had the luxury of choice, picking only the best meat.
It was simply that, to survive, every beast they hunted had flesh suffused with magic power.
To the barbarian tribes, all of this was nothing more than an ordinary meal.
They would fill their bellies with such meat until the very moment they died of old age.
"To gain the effect of an elixir, you need to eat it for over a decade—but everyone living here has done exactly that. They've been eating it since the time they were weaned and began chewing solid food."
"Then it's no different from having all taken elixirs. Their physical abilities must be proportionally robust."
If they were to be used as knights, it still might not be enough.
Great physical strength alone doesn't automatically grant the qualities of a commander or mastery of sword techniques.
But if they were to be used as soldiers, that was a different story.
If those with strength rivaling knights formed an army and swept through enemy lines—
if a single clash was enough to send the enemy's soldiers flying in one-sided fashion—
'Even with only half—no, less than half—the enemy's numbers, they could become the strongest army, one that strikes terror into their foes.'
The corners of Lucian's lips lifted slightly.
The army beyond the snowfields, once vague, was gradually taking shape in his mind.
Lucian's group stayed the night in the cabin, then departed the next morning.
To be honest, it was hard to tell whether it was morning or dawn at all.
The blizzard was so fierce that sunlight was barely visible.
They simply judged it as daytime when the sky was purplish, and night when it turned pitch-black.
"Damn it… I'm starting to see why not a single person who tried to cross this snowfield without magic ever came back."
After ten days, Hugo muttered as he shuddered.
With daylight so faint it was hard to tell morning from evening, and cold so severe that even knights couldn't endure it for long,
and on top of that, no sign of the barbarian tribes' settlements even after walking for a full ten days—it was nothing short of an ice hell.
If Helen and Colin's master hadn't opened a path, and if he hadn't established bases along the way, they would have frozen to death long ago.
"By the way, the promised fifteen days are up—so why haven't we seen those tribes yet?"
"One more day of travel will do it. If we forced a march, we could arrive within today, but we slowed our pace to preserve our strength as much as possible, so please don't worry."
"That's good news. Or… maybe it isn't? From their perspective, we're nothing more than uninvited guests."
"My master knows about our visit, so we should be received as guests. I've been here a few times myself—"
Helen, who had been in the middle of explaining things to Hugo, suddenly halted.
When the others followed her gaze and looked up, they saw dark silhouettes far in the distance.
Just as they blinked, wondering what they were, a roar thundered out from the shadows.
"Who dares set foot in the domain of the dragon!"
The booming voice slammed into Lucian's group's eardrums.
Even though it carried no magic power—just a raw shout—their ears rang painfully.
If there had been mountains nearby, that voice alone would have triggered an avalanche.
Lucian frowned at the sudden show of force and was about to step forward when—
"Leave this to me. If things go well, we might be able to avoid a fight."
"Hm."
At Helen's words, Lucian tilted his chin as if to say go ahead.
Given permission, Helen stepped forward and spoke in a gentle voice.
"Truly, the roar of a warrior. There are few who possess such a voice—might you be Sir Gunstein?"
"A woman? A woman, of all people, coming here?"
At Helen's voice, confusion was evident from the other side.
It seemed they had never imagined that a woman would cross the snowfields to reach this place.
Sensing the softening in their attitude, Helen smiled even more brightly and continued.
"Have you forgotten me? I'm Helen. I trained as a guide under our master, the Pathfinder. You once poured me a drink yourself at a banquet, Sir Gunstein—do you remember?"
At Helen's words, the other side fell silent.
Moments later, the silhouettes began to approach cautiously, as if on guard.
When both sides drew close enough to see each other clearly, Lucian's group's eyes widened.
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