Home/The Ice Age Came? And I Just Got Married?!/ch 27

 5. The Ice Age Research Institute

Chapter 27

Four days later.

We set out as planned for the Rosebrook naval base. The Harbor Control Authority was located on the eastern coast of Rosebrook.

On the way, we tried to find Nathan's lost sled and sled dogs, but it wasn't easy.

"I thought you'd come on skis."

Charlotte asked me.

"I thought you'd come on a sled, Charlotte."

"I'm not skilled enough yet."

"Me neither."

At my answer, Charlotte laughed. I laughed along with her.

"Now's not the time to laugh—can't you see this?"

Marcus pointed at his eyelashes and brows, covered in ice.

"My lashes are so heavy my eyes keep closing."

As he said, the situation wasn't good.

We needed to get indoors as soon as possible.

Still, we were nearly at the naval military facility.

After about an hour of brisk movement, we climbed up to the cliff where the naval base was located.

Moving up the snow-covered, frozen slope was quite difficult.

"Eve, doesn't that tidal wave look cracked?"

Charlotte pointed at the city visible below the cliff.

From atop the cliff that shielded the eastern side of Rosebrook, the city was even more visible.

And perhaps because of that, the tidal wave looming over the city looked even more grotesque.

It was eerie and frightening.

Charlotte said it looked cracked, but I couldn't see it with the naked eye. She was probably right though—it would break soon.

"This is a problem."

Just then, Logan clicked his tongue in annoyance. We stopped and turned our heads forward.

The entrance before us was hard to call a door. It was more like an iron wall than a gate.

The surface of the iron door was covered in white ice—it looked difficult even to touch.

No matter how we looked, we couldn't find a door.

"I don't see a door?"

Charlotte shrugged.

"This is the door. More precisely, it's a barrier designed to completely seal off the outside in emergencies."

"Then how do we open it?"

At my question, Charlotte gave a skeptical look.

"We can't. This can only be opened from inside the communications office. There is another entrance, but it's hard to access right now—it would take a lot of time."

At Charlotte's words, I looked down at the city from the cliff.

Then I'd better head to the Central Market District first—and find a place to spend the night there.

"Then what door does the key Senior Rutland has open?"

At my question, Marcus scratched his cheek awkwardly and pulled out a ring of keys.

"Good question. I only knew it was the base key—I didn't know the door would look like this."

And at that moment—

A shrill scream echoed from somewhere.

Instinctively, I loaded my hunting rifle and turned toward the sound.

Turning around, I saw a man pinned to the ground. The person pressing his boot roughly on the man's back was none other than Logan.

What on earth was going on?

"Where do you get the nerve to go after a woman when I'm right here?"

Logan's greatsword pressed down on the man's shoulder. Blood spread across the snow.

A rifle that had fallen from the man's hand lay in the snow.

Logan lifted the man's chin with his boot.

The rough motion was clean and efficient—it made me realize anew that he was a soldier.

"Name and affiliation."

"Urgh."

The man groaned beneath Logan.

"Name and affiliation. Speak—before I kill you."

The man was wearing a military uniform. He appeared to be Navy.

The problem was that he was already covered in blood. Even before Logan subdued him, the man was already dying.

His eyes, however, burned fiercely—mad eyes. Like a moth flying into a flame.

And those eyes were fixed precisely on me.

"Save us! Save us! You can do it!"

Was he talking to me?

As I stood puzzled, the man shouted my name like a nail in a coffin.

"Major Everhart ran off with the Heart of Frost! Eve Rania Everhart! You can fix this! You can save us!!! Damn it!!"

Major Everhart—that meant my missing second brother.

Julian Wesley Everhart.

I'd heard that just before he went missing in the north, he'd become the research director of the Ice Age Research Institute.

I froze in shock, and Logan—without even looking my way—pressed down harder on the man's shoulder with his greatsword.

Ugh.

Along with the man's groan, Logan spoke in an even lower voice.

"What does that mean? Explain."

But the man couldn't answer. His entire body convulsed. Then, frothing at the mouth, he screamed,

"Humanity is doomed!"

The man glared at me and shouted,

"Because of you!"

Then his breath stopped. Before Logan could do anything, the man collapsed.

"This mad bastard—how dare he—"

Logan checked the man's pulse and spat out a curse.

Marcus, who had been aiming his rifle at the man, approached and checked his pulse.

"He's dead."

A brief silence fell. Charlotte, who had been holding her dual swords, sheathed them and turned to me.

"Eve, what did that mean?"

At her question, Logan stepped forward and blocked me from view.

Charlotte raised both hands.

"It's pure curiosity."

"I'm curious too—care to explain, juniors?"

Marcus added.

"I don't really know either."

That was true. It wasn't in the novel, so I had no idea.

I was just a character who kept dying for the villain's narrative, wasn't I?

I turned to Logan.

"Logan, do you know anything?"

He stood with his arms crossed, deep in thought.

"This is getting complicated."

A low mutter, barely audible above the blizzard—only I, standing right beside him, could hear it.

I glanced up at Logan.

Then I informed Marcus and Charlotte,

"Give us a moment—we need to talk privately."

"What? No..."

Before Marcus could stop me, I grabbed Logan's arm and pulled him aside.

"Logan, you have a hunch, don't you? What is it?"

I whispered in a low voice. But Logan didn't answer right away.

After a moment of furrowing his brow and organizing his thoughts, he slowly spoke.

"I'm not sure."

"Tell me anyway."

"I recalled what you said just before you died in the previous life..."

So I had known something? I thought I'd just died—in the novel, I seemed to have no special abilities.

He seemed pained just by recalling the memory—he buried his face in one hand and exhaled deeply.

"You said the Heart of Frost was about to shatter."

The Heart of Frost? What was that? A code?

I anxiously tried to interpret the meaning.

"The Heart of Frost shatters. The Heart of Frost..."

Suddenly, something flashed through my mind.

Reclaim the Winterstones.

That voice I heard every time I absorbed a Winterstone—why did it tell me to reclaim them? Because they originally belonged to someone else? Because they shattered?

If so, that would mean the shattered Heart of Frost is the Winterstones.

But weren't Winterstones naturally occurring all over the world?

It was just a guess, without solid evidence—with a bit of imagination added.

But somehow, I felt certain it was right.

"Logan—every time I absorb a Winterstone, I hear a strange voice."

"You never told me that, Eve."

"Sorry. I thought I might be going crazy."

Logan looked at me with an expression that said he had much to say—but he let it go.

"It told me to reclaim the Winterstones."

At my words, Logan stroked his chin and replied,

"'Reclaim'—that implies they originally belonged to someone else."

"Right. And if the 'Heart of Frost' shattered—if those fragments are the Winterstones—then the Heart of Frost is a massive mana stone, the original source. That would explain it."

"Mana stones—that's absurd."

"And Winterstones aren't?"

At my question, Logan couldn't answer. No one could deny that Winterstones were akin to the mana stones of ancient times.

"In the previous life, did I say anything else?"

"There was no time. You were dying. It seemed like you only realized something at the very end."

"And what about me being able to save people—or humanity being doomed because of me?"

I wasn't actually some demon, was I?

"I don't know about the rest—but you can rule out being a demon. It's the opposite."

"Huh?"

"At least—I know better than anyone that you're closer to a 'saint' than a demon."

A saint. That title didn't suit me at all.

"I'd rather be a demon than a saint."

"What?"

This time, Logan stared at me with undisguised bewilderment.

Why are you looking at me like that? I'm saying I'll stay a demon beside a villain who turns dark.

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