Viktor ran.

  He had skipped his run this morning, because he had to go with Rhea to Alycia’s shop for the blonde’s most fascinating lecture on gears. Ugh. He still couldn’t believe he had managed to survive that. Well, at the very least, he walked away with an upgrade to his ballista.

  After lunch, Alycia gave them a tour of the workshop, most of which he ignored, unless something struck him as vaguely practical. On the other hand, Rhea, ever diligent, had taken notes with the devotion of a priest transcribing divine scripture. By mid-afternoon, they were done. Rhea stayed behind to help the blonde organize the shelves and sort the chaos into something resembling order, good luck with that. But well, whatever. If she loved making her life miserable that much, who was he to stop her? He would just go home.

  Or at least, that was what he had intended to do. The wind had been brutal earlier, and the sky had been a dull, bruised gray, so he had expected it to snow more before nightfall, and it would be best to get back to the hearth in his house before the streets iced over again.

  But then, stepping outside, he found the wind had died down, the clouds had lifted, and the sullen sun had even made a tentative appearance, melting patches of snow to slush and casting a golden light over the rooftops. It was still freezing cold, of course, but it was as warm as it could get these days.

  So he ran.

  Not toward the town center. Even on a weekend, there might still be people lingering in the streets, and he didn’t like obstacles on his jogging route. Instead, he turned in the opposite direction, toward the edge of Daelin, toward the farms, toward the river. He had no intention of crossing to the other side, obviously. Just to the bridge and back. Then he could call it a day.

  His boots bit into the patchy snow as he skirted the muddy slush that could soak his trousers or send him sprawling. Slush was a trap, and he wasn’t very fond of turning his clothes into a mess or finding himself flat on his nose. His breath came out in steady puffs, small clouds drifting up and vanishing into the chilled air.

  The town thinned behind him. Chimneys gave way to crooked fences and skeletal trees, their branches clawing at the sky like pleading fingers. Then, the land opened up.

  Fields stretched out to both sides. Flat, cracked, and frozen solid beneath a crust of frost. What little remained of the harvest protruded from the earth in broken splinters, brittle wreckage of a season long passed. Wooden fences marked the boundaries between plots, their tops covered in icy crystals that glittered faintly in the pale afternoon sun. Here and there, thin ribbons of smoke rose in spirals from scattered farmhouses, small reminders of life in such a bleak, unforgiving landscape.

  Viktor was careful not to overdo it. He needed to conserve his stamina. No point in exhausting himself before he could get anywhere near his target.

  Just keep it steady. Inhale, then exhale. His legs kept carrying him onward.

  At long last, the barren fields began to yield to the twisting course of the Voskryn, and slowly, a stone bridge rose in the distance. Finally, he thought, jaw clenched. His lungs were burning despite the cold air that flowed through them, his throat raw and ragged as if scraped by shards of glass. His entire body ached, trembling under the weight of the run. Sweat prickled beneath the scarf that clung damp and heavy to his neck. But the goal was within sight, so he decided to give himself a final push. He could stop once he had reached that damn bridge.

  Twenty paces more.

  Then ten.

  Five.

  He stumbled to a stop at the base of the bridge, chest heaving, hands planted firmly on his knees. If the world hadn’t been buried in snow, he would have collapsed right here and slept until the next day. His body still screamed in pain, of course, but nothing in life tasted better than the taste of victory, especially after it was won with sweat and blood.

  Well, technically, no blood had been spilled. But the point stood.

  He was not going to head back right away. Absolutely not. He would stay here and rest. Ten minutes. No, twenty. Maybe thirty. The sun could fall out of the sky, the town could burn to the ground, and the dungeon could collapse for all he cared. He would not move from this spot even one step.

  Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

  Gradually, his breathing calmed and the fire in his muscles dulled. He pushed himself upright with a groan, looking around, though he didn’t expect to see anything but endless snow, dead trees, and a half-frozen river under the bridge. To his surprise, he saw someone. Someone who sat on the riverbank, next to a fishing rod.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  What kind of lunatic went out fishing in weather like this?

  Then, after taking a better look, he realized that it was a lunatic he knew. A reluctant groan escaped him as he forced his stiff, throbbing legs to move.

  The figure sat slouched on a wooden chair that looked extremely out of place in these snowy wilds, wrapped tightly in a thick, fur-lined coat. Strands of blond hair, tangled and unkempt and clearly unacquainted with combs, stuck out from beneath a woolen scarf that covered half of his face.

  “What are you doing here, Lucian?” Viktor asked. Of all the places to find the boy mage, this frozen nowhere was definitely not on the list. He had been wondering where the hell his party had vanished to, and stumbling upon one of them on this riverbank was the last thing he had anticipated.

  Lucian startled, then turned in his chair. “Quinn? What are you doing out here?”

  “Jogging.”

  The boy frowned. “What kind of lunatic goes out jogging in weather like this?”

  You’re the one to talk, Viktor thought, eyeing the fishing rod.

  Lucian followed his gaze and gave a shrug. “Well, you can see for yourself. I’m fishing.”

  “Do you seriously believe you can catch anything in this frozen river?”

  “Fishing isn’t just about catching fish, you know. It’s a form of, well, meditation. You find a quiet place, you clear your mind, you turn inward, then you connect to your inner world.”

  Viktor stared at him. “You know you can do all of that in your room, next to a fire, right?”

  “Well, different people have different places and activities that help calm them down. For me, it’s fishing. There’s... been a lot of things lately. And I’ve found that if I don’t come out here and sit for a few hours, I can’t quite keep a grip on myself.”

  Now Viktor was really curious about what the hell had happened in the dungeon. What kind of horror drove a man to the point that he tried to commit suicide by fishing? Now, a certain blonde suddenly looked sane by comparison.

  Lucian turned his gaze toward the Voskryn, the river’s current barely visible beneath its icy surface. “Guess I’m lucky the waters around Daelin are safe,” he said. “Otherwise, I don’t know where I’d be fishing. I’ve heard the One Thousand Streams are infested by terrifying monsters, but for some reason, they never come near the town.”

  “Except that one time.”

  “Ah yes, I’ve heard that as well. It was... seven or eight years ago, right? The monsters came out of the river and attacked the town. How bad was it?”

  “I was too small to remember, but my sister said the town nearly got wiped out.”

  “That bad, huh?” Lucian cast a wary glance at the river, as if he was expecting something scary and full of teeth to stir beneath the ice. He drew in a deep breath, then stood up. “Well, maybe it’s time to go back.”

  So they did.

  The road back was exactly the same one Viktor had taken on his run, though it felt longer now, with fatigue setting in and no goal to chase. Barren, empty fields under a pale sky. Snow-covered fences, leafless trees, silent farmhouses. Every so often, a crow flapped overhead, letting out a sharp, grating cry that tore through the stillness.

  “The town’s actually quite far from the river, isn’t it?” Lucian said. “The monsters would’ve had to cross all this land to reach the populated areas. Are you sure your sister didn’t exaggerate the story a bit?”

  Viktor shook his head. “She’s not the only one. Anyone old enough to remember says the same. They came in swarms and destroyed everything. The farmland was ravaged, and a lot of people died. The lucky few who made it ran for the town.”

  Lucian swallowed hard.

  “They built a barricade. Thick, tall, covered the whole side of the town facing this direction,” Viktor continued. “It stayed up for years, even after the crisis was long over. It was only dismantled like two years ago.”

  He also heard that afterward, Rennald handed out loans to the farmers to help them rebuild. Some said he was a generous man who wanted to help the poor souls who had lost everything. Others said he was an opportunist who wanted to take advantage of the situation. Indeed, many of those farmers couldn’t pay him back. Now, their land was his land, and they worked it as his tenants. Still, whatever Rennald’s motives might have been, charity or just pure business, the truth was, without him and his money, this farmland, and maybe even Daelin as a whole, wouldn’t have recovered.

  “How did the crisis end anyway? How did they deal with the monsters?”

  “They didn’t really do anything, other than cowering behind the barricade. The monsters couldn’t get past it, so they tore up everything on the other side instead. They buggered off once there was nothing left to ruin.”

  “How about the adventurers? Did they fight back at all?”

  Viktor barked a laugh. “What do you expect from a bunch of Copper and Iron? Half of them fled the town the moment things got bad. They weren’t from Daelin, so they didn’t feel like dying for it.”

  Suddenly, he recalled Mayor Marcellus’s decision to bar anyone not born here from voting on whether to sell the dungeon to Clovis. At the time, it felt unfair and discriminatory. But now, thinking about it, maybe it wasn’t entirely unreasonable.

  “You do know I’m also an Iron-ranked, right?”

  “That’s because you’re young and new. I’m sure you’ll hit Silver or even Gold before you turn twenty.”

  The boy mage smiled, clearly pleased by the flattery. But that expression didn’t last. A sigh followed, heavy and uncertain.

  “Well... I don’t even know if I can keep adventuring anymore.”

  Seriously, what the hell happened in the dungeon?

  But before he could ask, Lucian suddenly raised a hand and pointed toward the side of the road. “Hey... is that—?” The boy squinted. “Is that a body? Someone... frozen to death?”

  Honestly, not shocking. Daelin was poor, and its streets always had their share of beggars and drunks and the occasional lunatic who thought jogging or fishing in weather like this was a good idea. So if one got claimed by the frost—

  Wait. Why did this feel so awfully familiar?

  Viktor snapped his head in the direction Lucian was pointing. And sure enough, he saw something green.

  “What... what should we do?” Lucian asked as they approached the body.

  What kind of question was that? There was only one thing to do when you found a corpse in green.

  Kick it, of course.

  The thing groaned. Then it stirred. A face emerged from the snow, its hair a wild tangle of white. Cloudy eyes blinked, and a crooked grin split the pale lips.

  “Oh, Quinn,” rasped a voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”