Chapter 863: Died?

"Hm?"

In another room within the fortress tower, Riezel suddenly looked up.

’...What’s that woman trying to do?’

A puzzled, slightly strange expression appeared on his face.

"M-Master..."

In that moment, an extremely shy voice suddenly came from in front of him.

On the bed, Lizbeth sat with her face flushed bright red.

Her hands had been tied together, and even her eyes had been blindfolded, looking as though she had been kidnapped and was about to be subjected to something unspeakable. Combined with the fact that most of her clothes had already been stripped away, the scene was incredibly suggestive.

"?"

Beside the blushing little princess, Euryale curiously looked at her own bound hands, seemingly unaware of just how morally questionable the situation she was about to face really was.

Fortunately, Ivy and Leo weren’t here.

Otherwise, seeing Riezel treating the princess they treasured so dearly like this would have driven them into such a rage that they probably would have fought him on the spot.

"It’s nothing."

Riezel withdrew his gaze.

Looking at the tempting sight before him, he reluctantly put his coat back on.

"Hang tight. I’ll be back in a bit," Riezel told them seriously. "And remember, wait for me. Don’t try to break free, and don’t open the door for anyone else. Got it?"

Lizbeth’s face immediately turned even redder.

Although she couldn’t see anything with the blindfold on, she still buried her head beneath the blanket, too embarrassed to face anyone.

"Mm..."

Euryale obediently nodded to show that she understood.

Only then did Riezel reluctantly leave the room.

After firmly shutting the door and confirming that Ivy and Leo wouldn’t suddenly come here, he leaped down from the corridor and landed in the first-floor hall. He quickly crossed the hall, passed through the corridor leading to the entrance, and reached the tower’s main doors.

There, someone was desperately trying to push the doors open.

"W-Why won’t it open?"

A young woman’s frustrated voice rang out softly.

Who else could it have been but Chloria?

It was because Riezel had sensed someone attempting to open the door that he had come to take a look.

’Is she trying to leave?’

Watching Chloria, who hadn’t noticed his presence at all and was still pushing against the door with all her strength, Riezel fell into thought.

He wasn’t worried that Chloria would actually manage to open it.

In YGGDRASIL, the 10th-Tier Magic Create Fortress could only be opened by touch if the person was a player in the same party as the caster. Everyone else could only get through by destroying it through brute force or by using special lockpicking skills, lockpicking items, or similar methods.

Naturally, in reality, there was no such thing as ’players in the same party.’

As a result, aside from the caster themselves, anyone who wanted to open the doors could only rely on the methods mentioned above.

Chloria appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary person who couldn’t use swordsmanship or magic, so it was only natural that she simply didn’t possess the ability to force the tower doors open.

Because of that, Riezel wasn’t the least bit worried that Chloria could quietly escape.

However...

"I’d kinda like to see what you’re really trying to do..."

After muttering to himself, Riezel silently opened the doors through his connection with the magic.

*Rumble—*

Amid a thunderous roar, Chloria pushed with every ounce of strength she had and finally forced the doors open.

"I-I did it!"

Chloria secretly rejoiced while breathing heavily, then immediately glanced behind her cautiously before wrapping her thick clothes tightly around herself and rushing into the raging blizzard.

Only then did Riezel reveal himself.

Watching her disappear into the snowstorm, his eyes narrowed slightly.

In the next second, he calmly stepped out of the fortress tower and followed her into the howling wind and snow.

===

*Whoosh—*

Tonight, the nighttime blizzard howled relentlessly.

It was not only freezing but also shrouded in darkness, making it feel as though one had stepped into a land of no return.

The ground was a vast expanse of white, while everything around was pitch black.

The world of black and white formed a terrifying abyss, like a roaring demonic beast from hell opening its jaws to devour every living thing.

Walking alone through such a world was torture, not only for the body but also for the mind and spirit.

At the very least, that was how Chloria felt.

Looking at the darkness surrounding her and the snow beneath her feet, the fear in her heart continued to grow while her body temperature dropped rapidly.

Honestly, she was already beginning to regret it.

"If I were going to run away, why didn’t I do it earlier? Why did I wait until now?"

Chloria couldn’t help but question herself.

Unfortunately, there was no one who could answer her.

She could only grit her teeth and continue pressing forward through the blizzard, shivering from head to toe.

What she didn’t know was that someone had been following her the entire time.

Having activated Perfect Unknowable, Riezel stayed close behind Chloria, a thoughtful expression once again appearing on his face.

He had originally thought this pursuit would reveal some of Chloria’s secrets. He had also assumed that she had escaped with a specific goal in mind.

But now, it didn’t seem that way.

She didn’t appear to have any destination at all. She simply walked forward aimlessly with her head lowered, trembling the entire time. Frost had already begun to form on her eyebrows.

’Is she really not scared of dying?’

Watching Chloria stubbornly force herself onward, Riezel thought seriously, unsure whether he felt admiration or disbelief.

In such an extremely low-temperature environment, even someone with the physique of a Sword Master wouldn’t dare run around carelessly in a blizzard like this. Yet Chloria, an ordinary person, had simply wrapped herself in a few layers of clothing and charged into the storm.

It would be one thing if she didn’t encounter any monsters, but if she did, she would almost certainly die.

From Riezel’s perspective, there was no way she didn’t understand that.

Yet she still gritted her teeth and continued walking, seemingly not caring that she had no destination. It was as though she wanted only one thing—to get as far away from Urvashi as possible.

’Interesting...’

Riezel’s curiosity had been piqued.

’Who the heck are you, exactly? And what’re you really trying to do?’

With those thoughts in mind, Riezel decided to keep following her.

However, as he continued, he realized he couldn’t keep watching without intervening.

"Hey, up ahead is..."

The words escaped his mouth almost instinctively, but Riezel was a moment too late.

"Kya!"

With a scream, Chloria, who had been walking with her head lowered through the blizzard, suddenly disappeared.

Apparently, she had never realized that a cliff lay directly in front of her, stepping into empty air without hesitation before plunging straight off the edge.

*Splash!*

A moment later, the sound of water rose from below the cliff, causing Riezel’s expression to change slightly.

’There’s water down there?’

As soon as that thought crossed his mind, Riezel activated teleportation magic without the slightest hesitation and vanished.

When he reappeared, he was already at the bottom of the cliff, where he finally saw what lay beneath.

A glacial river flowed below.

Despite the howling blizzard, numerous chunks of ice and even small icebergs drifted along the river, yet it had not completely frozen over.

The current was incredibly swift.

It had eroded both sides of the cliff until they were smooth, and from time to time, rocks broke away from the cliff face, only to be swept away by the raging water and disappear in an instant.

In a torrent like this, the fate of an ordinary woman could easily be imagined just by looking at what happened to those rocks.

At the very least, Riezel could no longer see Chloria anywhere.

’Good grief, that woman’s luck really sucks.’

Riezel frowned deeply, then, without the slightest hesitation, plunged into the glacial river with a loud splash.

If anyone had witnessed the scene, they probably would have thought he had completely lost his mind. In a blizzard with temperatures well below -50°C, he had jumped straight into an icy river without taking any protective measures at all.

It was practically asking to die.

Of course, Riezel wasn’t suicidal.

Thanks to Pioneer of the Sun, he possessed tremendous resistance to extreme cold. Unless the temperature reached something as terrifying as absolute zero, ordinary freezing environments simply couldn’t affect him.

Moreover, after spending so much time exploring his own abilities, Riezel had been surprised to discover that his adaptability to certain environments had become extraordinarily high.

For example, not only could he now breathe underwater, but even without activating any magic or using any special techniques, he could naturally stand on the surface of the water.

At first, even Riezel had been somewhat surprised by this, but it didn’t take long for him to realize why.

It was the fairy’s divine protection.

Just as Woodwose, the head of the Fang Clan in the Fairy Kingdom Lostbelt, had been nearly impossible for even Riezel to injure because of his powerful divine protection, Riezel himself also carried the divine protection of a certain fairy and had inherited a portion of that fairy’s power.

Needless to say, this was one of the effects of the Stake of Oath, as well as the very thing the witch who called herself queen had repeatedly dismissed as ’something I didn’t want.’

Since obtaining this divine protection, Riezel hadn’t noticed many of its effects at first. It was only later that he gradually discovered some of them, and the ability to stand on water and breathe underwater was one such effect.

With that divine protection and his resistance to extreme cold, Riezel dove directly into the glacial river despite its terrifyingly low temperature.

"Sense Life."

Activating his detection magic, Riezel quickly located Chloria’s life signature and sped toward her.

Because the current was so powerful, Chloria had already been swept a considerable distance downstream in such a short amount of time.

By the time Riezel found her, the young woman had already completely lost consciousness. She hadn’t struggled at all and had simply been carried beneath the surface by the raging current.

As soon as he saw that, Riezel immediately rushed after her.

He had no choice.

*Rumble!*

Amid the roaring water, a massive whirlpool was spinning beneath the glacial river.

Chloria was swept along by the current and dragged straight into its center, sinking rapidly into the depths.

’...You really are unlucky.’

With that thought, Riezel likewise plunged into the center of the whirlpool, disappearing beneath the glacier.

*Rumble!*

As the deafening roar echoed on, the massive whirlpool slowly began to disappear.

Before long, the river beneath the surface became completely calm, without so much as a single ripple remaining.

===

*BOOM!*

Within a pitch-black space, accompanied by a violent explosion of splashing water, two figures fell into the area one after another.

*Whoosh!*

As soon as he entered, Riezel accelerated like a bullet, shooting toward the falling Chloria before finally catching her in his arms.

"She’s freezing..."

Holding Chloria close, Riezel frowned tightly.

He could clearly feel that her body had almost completely lost its warmth. She was so cold that she resembled a corpse that had long since gone cold.

"Dry."

Riezel cast a household utility spell without hesitation, instantly drying Chloria’s soaked clothes and removing every trace of moisture from both her body and his own.

Afterward, he cast fire-attribute magic, causing a ball of flame to ignite.

As the fire flared to life, Riezel was finally able to make out part of the dark surroundings. Illuminated by the firelight was an underground cavern that resembled a massive limestone cave. ℯℯ𝑙.

Still holding Chloria, he found himself floating in midair inside the cavern.

"Where the hell is this?"

Riezel looked around in surprise before instinctively raising his head.

Above them, there was no whirlpool, nor was there any glacial river. Instead, the only thing overhead was a ceiling lined with countless icicle-like stalactites.

He had clearly dived into the whirlpool beneath the glacier, yet he had somehow ended up in this place instead.

The absurd situation left Riezel thoroughly bewildered.

However, the young woman in his arms still hadn’t regained any warmth, and her breathing seemed to have stopped completely, forcing him to shift his attention away from the strange surroundings.

Carrying Chloria, whose body now felt like a corpse, Riezel slowly descended to the ground. At the same time, the floating fireball followed him, settling onto the cave floor and transforming into a blazing campfire.

"...Don’t tell me she’s actually dead."

Frowning, Riezel checked Chloria’s breathing before, without concerning himself with whether it was appropriate or not, slipping his hand beneath the thick layers of her clothing and pressing it against the soft fullness of her well-developed chest, feeling for any signs of life.

Unfortunately, the conclusion was far from optimistic.

Chloria had stopped breathing.

Her heart had stopped beating.

Her body had completely lost its warmth and was as cold as a corpse.

No doubt about it, Chloria Michette was dead.

’She seriously died just like that? You’ve gotta be kidding me.’

Surprisingly, the frown on Riezel’s face relaxed instead.

’I don’t know whether to call you unlucky or lucky.’

Under normal circumstances, dying so easily was unquestionably bad luck, but the fact that she had died right in front of Riezel was, in another sense, incredibly fortunate.

Because on the entire Akasha Continent, only the man standing before her had the ability to bring her back to life.

"Now you owe me a favor you’ll never be able to pay back. Trying to brush this off like before? Nope, that’s not gonna work anymore..."

Muttering to himself, Riezel activated one of his most precious magic spells.

"True Resurrection."

Just like that, the resurrection magic that no second person in this world possessed was cast.

*Buzz!*

As brilliant light blossomed, Chloria’s heartbeat gradually returned, and her breathing resumed.

Warmth slowly flowed back into her ice-cold body before, in the next moment, her eyes suddenly flew open.

"..."

Riezel’s expression immediately turned serious.

Because within those eyes, a golden radiance was beginning to gather.

===

[A bonus Chapter for reaching 400 Power Stones]

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