Chapter 273: On Rose’s Trail

At the northernmost edge of the world lies a land that most living beings prefer to pretend doesn’t exist.

The Great White North.

Snow covers everything as far as the eye can see, the wind howls endlessly between mountains of ice, and the cold reaches levels capable of killing any ordinary creature long before it can travel more than a few kilometers.

There are no cities, no kingdoms, not a single trace of civilization.

Because that frozen wasteland has only one ruler... death.

Spectres wander among the snowstorms, condemned to eternally roam the same frozen expanse, while above them dragons, the oldest and most powerful creatures in the world, have ruled those icy mountains since long before the first kingdoms ever existed.

And yet, as paradoxical as it might seem, the Great White North was the region that had witnessed the fewest conflicts in the entire history of the world.

Not a single war had ever managed to spread there.

Not even the great war against the Demon Lord, that conflict which had shaken the entire continent and stained every corner of the inhabited lands with blood, had managed to disturb that peace.

And it wasn’t because the Demon Lord had been incapable of conquering it.

She could have, if she’d truly set her mind to it, but there simply hadn’t been any compelling reason to even try.

Because venturing into the north meant confronting the dragons directly.

And a campaign against them would have meant diverting an enormous portion of her army toward a front that offered her absolutely nothing.

While the south remained locked in a war that kept consuming more and more resources, wasting troops, time, and attention on those frozen lands was a decision even the Demon Lord couldn’t afford at the time.

So the Demon Lord had simply left the north in peace.

Not out of incapacity, but out of pure strategic convenience.

Humans, for their part, had tried to take advantage of the north during the war.

The idea of having dragons on their side, or at least using those lands as a refuge or strategic point, had proven tempting to more than one ambitious general.

But those attempts hit reality very quickly.

The cold killed long before any enemy could, spectres appeared by the thousands, and the environment itself rejected anyone who tried to settle there.

Staying alive was already a feat; building a city, an absolute absurdity.

Or, at least, that was what everyone believed...

At the top of one of those snowy mountains, beneath the silver glow of a full moon hanging enormous in the clear sky, a slender figure gazed at the landscape in silence.

She was a woman with black hair, so long it fell far below her back, swaying gently in the freezing wind.

Her eyes, an intense red, were fixed on the starry sky lighting up the night, and her pale face showed no trace of discomfort from the cold surrounding her.

"It’s beautiful..." she murmured quietly, not looking away from the moon.

"You’re absolutely right, dear sister!"

An animated voice replied from behind.

"I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire life! It’s amazing! The outside world really is an incredibly beautiful place!"

A second woman landed beside her with a jump.

She looked remarkably like the first, to the point that there was no doubt they were related.

The same pale skin, the same red eyes, the same sharp features.

But while the first had long hair and a serene bearing, this one wore hers short and was a little shorter.

And she had an overflowing energy that contrasted completely with the taller woman’s calm.

The long-haired woman let out a tired sigh at hearing her.

"You sure took your time..." she said, without turning to look at her.

"Huh?"

"For someone who wanted to see the outside world more than anyone, you took forever to come out, Lily," she continued, with a hint of reproach and a furrowed brow.

"It wasn’t my fault!" Lily protested, puffing out her cheeks.

"It’s always someone else’s fault with you..."

"This time it really wasn’t! I swear, Dalia!" Lily held out her hand toward her. "It was because of this. Father gave it to me right before we left."

Dalia’s gaze slowly dropped to her sister’s open palm, where a small white stone rested.

"A teleportation stone?"

"Yep!"

"And why did that take you so long?"

"Because Father took forever to explain how to use it," Lily said with a groan. "You know how he gets... ’This is very important, Lily. Pay attention, Lily. Don’t lose it, Lily’."

She rolled her eyes while forcing a solemn voice to imitate her father.

"Half an hour to say ’break it and that’s it’..."

Dalia gave a barely perceptible smile.

"And why did he give it to you?"

"Father gave it to me just as a precaution," Lily replied with a shrug. "He said if things get too complicated for us, we can use it to get back home right away."

"We’re not going to need it."

"Oh, no?"

"No," Dalia replied with absolute confidence. "I’m more than enough on my own to bring Rose back. Insurance is for people who think they might fail."

Lily gave her a sideways glance, a mischievous little smile creeping onto her lips.

"Sure, sure, whatever you say," she replied, tilting her head with an amused smile. "But if things really are like you say, explain something to me... why did Father decide to send me with you?"

Dalia went quiet for half a second.

"Because you’re unbearable," she replied without missing a beat.

"WHAT?!"

"We both know you cried to Father until he couldn’t take it anymore," Dalia continued, a small malicious smile forming. "And in the end he let you come along just because he couldn’t stand hearing you whine for one more minute."

Dalia paused, savoring her sister’s reaction.

"So don’t get confused, you’re not here because I need you... you’re here because you were giving Father a headache."

"That’s a lie! A lie! A lie! A lie!"

"Is it?"

"Well, maybe I cried a little bit... but so what?!" Lily replied, puffing out her cheeks and frowning. "It was a very dignified cry!"

"There’s no such thing..."

"Of course there is!"

Dalia shook her head, though the corner of her lips betrayed her.

Despite everything, there was something curiously comforting about this constant back-and-forth with her little sister.

Lily kept grumbling a bit more, but seeing she wasn’t going to win that argument, she decided to change the subject.

"Hey, Dalia, can I ask you something?"

"...Go ahead."

"Why do you think Father decided to send us to find Rose after all this time?" Lily asked, somewhat confused. "For years he wouldn’t even mention her name... and suddenly he orders us to go find her. What do you think could have happened?"

"Father sensed her again."

"Huh?" Lily said, raising an eyebrow. "Wasn’t she supposed to have severed her bond with Father?"

"She did."

"I don’t think I’m following you..."

"Father didn’t give me too many explanations, but from what he said it’s not his bond with her... it seems to be something different."

"Yeah... I understand nothing."

"To be honest, I didn’t fully understand it either," Dalia confessed, letting out a heavy sigh. "But what matters is that we already have an approximate location."

"And where is that?"

"In the south."

"Huh? What’s Sister Rose doing all the way down there?" Lily frowned, genuinely bewildered. "Only demi-humans, semi-humans, and all those weirdos live down there, right?"

"..."

"Out of all the places she could be, of course she’d end up in the farthest and most complicated one," Lily protested, bringing a hand to her forehead. "Do you know how long it’s going to take us to get there? We’re not talking about a few days, Dalia! It’s going to be months of travel!"

"..."

"It’s going to be so boring!"

"I know."

"And that doesn’t bother you?!"

"What bothers me more is listening to you complain..." Dalia replied, somewhat irritated.

"Hey!"

Dalia walked to the edge of the cliff, ignoring her sister’s protest, and gazed out at the vast snowy expanse spreading below them.

"Stop whining and get moving," she said without looking at her sister. "The sooner we set off, the sooner this will be over... We find Rose, we bring her back, and that’s it."

"And what if she doesn’t want to come back?" Lily asked, this time with genuine curiosity. "What are we going to do then?"

Dalia paused for an instant.

"It’s not her place to want or not want," she replied coldly. "Father gave an order... that’s all that matters."

And without saying another word, she leapt off the mountaintop into the void.

"You’re going ahead again?!" Lily exclaimed, running to the edge.

She spread her arms, and instantly a pair of enormous bat wings sprouted from her back.

With a powerful thrust she rose into the air, following her sister’s silhouette, already descending at full speed toward the vast white lands below.

And so, the two of them set off on their journey south in search of their sister.