Chapter 301: News from Chris.

Two years ago, when Nasha learned that her brother had gone into the snowy mountains, she began praying every day. She hoped he would reach the Kingdom of Snow safely, meet their grandfather and uncle, and secure the protection of the royal family.

Now, at the Mages’ Guild, she had finally received definite news of him. The weight that had hung over her heart for so long was finally lifted.

She could hardly wait to visit the royal palace of the Kingdom of Snow and reunite with her brother.

But this was no time to get carried away. The Little Fairies were still waiting for news of Chris.

The female mage returned Nasha’s missing-person notice, then turned to the form Shu Li had filled out.

“Chris?” She frowned.

The five Little Fairies watched her nervously.

As the mage continued reading, her attention was drawn away from the personal details at the top of the form. The section describing the extraordinary “accomplishments” Chris might have left in his wake was far more interesting.

After a long moment, she set down the form and regarded Shu Li and his companions with a complicated expression.

“Well? Do you know him?” Shu Li asked eagerly.

The mage shook her head. Seeing the disappointment cloud the boy’s eyes, she gave a slight nod.

Shu Li was baffled.

What was that supposed to mean?

Did she know him or not? Could she just give them a straight answer?

Under the Little Fairies’ anxious gazes, the mage explained, “This Mr. Chris disappeared twenty years ago, which is quite a long time. Given his unusual personality and the things he supposedly did, he should have been famous throughout the Kingdom of Snow. But I've worked here for ten years, and I've never heard his name.”

Shu Li sighed. “Then... if you've never heard of Chris, why did you nod?”

The mage smiled. “Because I can help you search the historical archives.”

Every year, the Mages’ Guild recorded major local events and stored those records in its archives for future reference.

If a mage named Chris had really visited the Kingdom of Snow, he was bound to have left some trace of himself.

“That would be wonderful!” Shu Li exclaimed. “Please help us check the records from twenty years ago!”

Knowing Chris and his love of practical jokes, Shu Li was certain the Fairy would have caused an uproar wherever he went. Just look at the Magical Beast Forest—Chris had turned the whole place upside down.

The mage nodded. “Of course. There is a small service fee for searching the archives, though.”

Shu Li immediately reached for his money. “How much? I'll pay!”

The mage charged him twenty gold coins, then asked the group to wait in the reception room for half an hour while she and a colleague searched the archives.

Waiting was a tedious business. Shu Li suggested that the others return to the inn and rest while the Little Fairies and young dragons stayed behind for the news.

After spending five or six days climbing through the snowy mountains, everyone was exhausted. Now that they finally had a roof over their heads and proper beds to sleep in, they ought to make the most of it.

“We're a team. If we're waiting, we're waiting together,” Hector declared, settling into a chair. “The sooner we hear something about Chris, the sooner we can all stop worrying.”

After hearing so many stories about Chris's outrageous exploits, everyone had grown curious about him.

Sperien and the other Little Fairies were so adorable and innocent. Why, then, was Chris such an incorrigible prankster?

Was that simply the difference between young Fairies and adults?

Hector suddenly thought of Ilio, and his brows nearly knitted themselves into a knot.

Come to think of it, adult Elves could be pretty nasty too. Over the past two years, in their efforts to advance their magical ranks as quickly as possible, they'd endured no end of torment and mockery from Ilio.

Since the entire Light Squad wanted to stay, Shu Li turned to Seidler and Moresy to ask their opinions.

“I've got nothing else to do. Might as well wait,” Moresy said, finding himself a chair. “It's only half an hour. It'll pass quickly.”

Seidler had no objections either.

Moresy turned toward Nasha with a mischievous smile. “Aren't you a princess of the Dalia Empire? How did you suddenly become a princess of the Pedam Kingdom?”

After knowing the Light Squad for two years, he had a general idea of each member's background. He hadn't expected the young girl to have another secret identity.

If he remembered correctly, the Pedam Kingdom had fallen long ago and been absorbed into the Kingdom of Cecilia.

A flash of hatred crossed Nasha's violet eyes.

“I was originally a princess of the Pedam Kingdom. The queen of the Dalia Empire is my aunt. To conceal my identity, she adopted me as her daughter.”

“Ah, that explains it.” Understanding dawned on Moresy.

The queens of the Dalia Empire and the Pedam Kingdom were sisters. When the Pedam Kingdom was invaded, it was only natural that the younger sister would send her child to the elder for protection.

More importantly, both queens were princesses of the Kingdom of Snow. That made Nasha's journey here to find her brother perfectly reasonable.

“Do you have proof of your identity?” Moresy asked.

Nasha blinked, caught off guard by the question. “What?”

“The royal palace is heavily guarded,” Moresy explained. “They don't let just anyone inside. Without proof of your identity, I'm afraid you won't get through the gates.”

His words reminded Shu Li of the time, ten years earlier, when he and Ilio had taken Nasha to the royal palace of the Dalia Empire. They had only managed to enter smoothly because someone had pulled strings for them.

Nasha recovered from her surprise and nodded in understanding.

“Yes, I do.”

A year earlier, during a school holiday, she had made a special trip back to the Dalia Empire to ask her aunt about the whereabouts of the magical sword, the Sword of Bershug.

The Sword of Bershug had been part of the queen's dowry, so Nasha hadn't felt comfortable asking for it outright. Instead, she had tried to find out where it was through indirect questions.

To her astonishment, her aunt told her that six years earlier, she had instructed Senluo to take the Sword of Bershug to the Kingdom of Snow.

Nasha had been stunned.

She had never known why Senluo had left. Although she had questioned her aunt many times, the queen had always been vague about the matter. Only that day had she finally revealed where Senluo had gone.

“Why did you send the Sword of Bershug away?”

That was what Nasha had asked at the time.

The queen of the Dalia Empire, whose features bore a striking resemblance to Nasha's own mother, had looked deeply sorrowful.

“I cannot allow the Dalia Empire to suffer the same fate as the Pedam Kingdom.”

A magical sword had been the cause of the Pedam Kingdom's destruction!

Her aunt explained that after Nasha arrived in the Dalia Empire, she had secretly ordered Senluo to investigate. It had taken him two years to uncover enough clues to piece together the truth.

The Kingdom of Cecilia's real objective in invading the Pedam Kingdom had been the magical sword known as the Sword of Itno.

If the Sword of Bershug remained in the Dalia Empire, the empire would become the next Pedam Kingdom.

By then, Nasha had already learned about the king of Cecilia's ambitions from Sperien. What she hadn't expected was that her aunt had noticed the warning signs so much earlier.

As expected of the queen of a great empire.

The Kingdom of Snow lay in the far north of the continent and opened its borders only once every two years. Its natural defenses made it extraordinarily difficult to invade.

Even during the War of the Gods ten thousand years ago, the Kingdom of Snow had suffered the fewest losses.

After careful consideration, her aunt had decided to send the magical sword back to the Kingdom of Snow. It had been an exceptionally wise decision.

Since Nasha knew she would eventually travel there herself, she had asked her aunt for a token of identification. With it, she could prove who she was and gain entry to the royal palace.

Now that she knew her brother was also in the palace, Nasha was immensely glad she'd had the foresight to obtain it.

“Good. That's one problem solved,” Moresy said.

Shu Li sensed there was something more behind his words and couldn't resist asking, “What if she didn't have one?”

Moresy winked impishly.

“No proof? Then we'd just sneak in.”

Thump!

The next instant, Seidler punched him.

“Ow!” Moresy clutched his aching jaw and stared at Seidler accusingly.

What had he done to deserve that?

“Don't teach the children bad habits,” Seidler said coldly.

Dark Elves were always up to something underhanded. Some things never changed.

Moresy rubbed his nose, looking thoroughly innocent.

“Hee-hee!”

The Little Fairies giggled behind their hands, not feeling the least bit sorry for him.

Moresy was forever running his mouth. He had practically been asking for that punch.

Of course, Seidler knew how to control his strength. He would never actually hurt Moresy.

Shu Li fought to keep the corners of his mouth from rising, determined not to let the Dark Elf see him laughing. Then he turned to Nasha and asked with an appropriately serious expression, “When do you want to visit the palace? Would you like us to go with you?”

Although the royal family of the Kingdom of Snow were relatives of Nasha's mother, Shu Li still wasn't comfortable with the idea of her going alone to an unfamiliar place.

“As soon as possible,” Nasha replied. “This afternoon, perhaps. I can go by myself.”

It was a personal matter, after all. She didn't want to trouble her teammates.

Shu Li frowned slightly. “By yourself? I don't think that's a good idea.”

“I agree,” Siti said. “You'll be all alone in the palace, with no one to back you up. What if someone decides to bully you?”

As a princess of a great empire herself, Siti knew just how tangled relationships within a royal palace could be. One careless mistake could offend the wrong person and create all sorts of unnecessary trouble.

“I'll go with you,” she offered.

“But...” Nasha was still hesitating when the female mage returned, carrying a roll of yellowed paper.

Everyone stopped talking and turned toward her.

“Well?” Shu Li asked. “Did you find anything?”

The mage beamed.

“You're in luck. We found quite a bit.”

The mage named Chris really was an extraordinary character. On his very first day in the Kingdom of Snow, he'd done something so outrageous that it would have been impossible for anyone not to notice him.

The Mages’ Guild had recorded his exploits in considerable detail.

The Little Fairies immediately perked up, staring eagerly at the scroll in her hands.

The mage carefully unrolled the paper and spread it flat across the table.

“Here you are.”

Shu Li, Kumandi, Dixio, Angel, and Budno immediately crowded around to read the account, which was written in the Continental Common Language.

Fifteen minutes later, all five Little Fairies finished reading and let out a collective sigh.

Chris really was Chris.

He couldn't behave himself anywhere.

“Well?” Amanda asked nervously when he saw their speechless expressions.

Shu Li pinched the bridge of his nose and stepped aside.

“Read it yourself.”

Amanda moved forward to examine the document. By the time he finished, his mouth was hanging open.

Now everyone else was curious too. They took turns crowding around the table to read the scroll.

Moresy had barely finished the first paragraph when he burst out laughing.

Oh, this was priceless!

Chris was a genius!

On his very first day in the royal capital of the Kingdom of Snow, Chris had gotten into a dispute with a mercenary company of more than fifty men.

Taking advantage of their superior numbers, the mercenaries had driven Chris out of the inn where he'd already booked a room.

Chris hadn't argued. He'd simply left without a word.

The following morning, however, every mercenary woke to discover himself lying stark naked in bed, with a turtle drawn on his face.

The mercenaries were horrified.

Someone had slipped into their rooms in the dead of night without alerting a soul, stolen all their clothes and storage pouches, and brazenly left behind “evidence” of the crime.

The mercenaries were furious. Unfortunately, with neither clothes nor money, they could do nothing but huddle in their rooms.

Even worse, no one knew what sort of pigment had been used to draw the turtles on their faces, but the marks simply wouldn't wash off!

Not even magic or potions could remove them.

At that moment, the mercenaries would gladly have torn the culprit limb from limb.

Having accomplished all this, Chris ought to have disappeared quietly and left his masterpiece to speak for itself.

But of course he didn't.

Confident in his superior magical abilities, he went from window to window, openly mocking the mercenaries in their rooms.

They immediately realized that he was the despicable thief who had robbed them the night before.

And so a bitter feud began.

The mercenary company appealed to other adventuring parties for help, managed to obtain clothes on credit, and promptly launched a manhunt for Chris.

For a while, the entire royal capital of the Kingdom of Snow was in an uproar.

Chris fled while hurling taunts at his pursuers. True to form, he couldn't resist playing a few more little pranks along the way, which only succeeded in offending the adventuring parties that had come to the mercenaries' aid.

With more than a hundred people chasing him, Chris darted from one hiding place to another, causing trouble wherever he went. Apart from the royal palace, there was scarcely a place in the capital he hadn't visited.

Even more astonishingly, the number of people pursuing him eventually swelled to over a thousand.

Calling him the most hated man in the city would hardly have been an exaggeration.

Perhaps he'd finally run out of places to hide, with enemies waiting around every corner. Whatever the reason, Chris led the thousand-strong mob chasing him straight into the Snow Mountain Labyrinth.

From that day onward, no one heard from him again.

And the thousand-plus people who had followed him inside?

They vanished too.

All of them had been missing for twenty years.

The Mages’ Guild had once sent a search party into the Snow Mountain Labyrinth, but their efforts had yielded nothing.

There was no trace of the missing people anywhere on the first five floors. Some speculated that Chris and his thousand-plus pursuers had descended all the way to the eighth floor.

The Snow Mountain Labyrinth had nine floors in total, each more dangerous than the last. Most adventuring parties could only reach the fifth floor, and only a handful had ever ventured as far as the seventh.

The eighth and ninth floors remained complete mysteries.

After reading the records, everyone fell silent for a long time.

Shu Li had previously suspected that Chris might have entered the Snow Mountain Labyrinth. What he hadn't imagined was that Chris had been chased into it by an angry mob.

“Do you think he's all right?” Budno asked worriedly.

The Snow Mountain Labyrinth was fraught with danger. Only those who had ventured inside knew what conditions were really like.

Was there enough food?

Could anyone possibly find enough to survive for twenty years?

“Don't worry. Trouble like him lives forever,” Shu Li reassured him.

He had complete faith in Chris's abilities. There was no way that Fairy would let himself starve to death.

From the information they'd gathered over the past two years, the Snow Mountain Labyrinth had its own ecosystem. As long as someone was capable enough, there was food to be found.