Chapter 157 – Frozen Things (One)

A hazy midday sun shone through.

“Hmm, hmm, hmm.”

A red-haired girl hummed a tune as she walked down the street.

Her voluminous, medium-length hair fluttered with her light steps.

“First mission complete, second mission is… Ah! I should go this way.”

Veronica was roaming various parts of the Sector as instructed by Ray.

The place she had just left was the Mercenary Office.

In the girl’s hands now were a Sector map and a simple booklet.

It was a list of recruitment notices and requests distributed to mercenaries and explorers within the Sector.

Originally, it wasn’t something a young girl on the street could obtain.

“Wheeeeeee──!”

The problem was easily solved by spinning a wind blade like a chainsaw and threatening to split the School Master’s desk.

“Hmm, Ray said to find an Expedition with the same or a similar destination as ours.”

Veronica examined the booklet.

Only publicly classified notices and requests were listed in the booklet, but even considering that, the pages were quite thick.

Flip─ Flip─

Her finger, which had been turning the pages, stopped.

“Ah, here it is.”

[Recruitment Notice]

[Gaiol, a Ruins explorer with 8 years of experience.]

[Discovered a signpost pointing to an undiscovered Ruins site at coordinates 412. 32 in the northeastern outskirts of the Sector.]

[According to the signpost, the Ruins are presumed to be located at coordinates 877. 129.]

[However, cannot guarantee the actual existence of Ruins at that location. The journey there is expected to be extremely dangerous, and survival cannot be assured.]

[But promises immense wealth upon success, enough to live lavishly for a lifetime.]

“Eight years of experience is incredibly long, isn’t it?”

Veronica recalled the School Master’s words.

“It’s no exaggeration to say the success of an expedition largely depends on the capabilities of the Expedition Captain. But finding someone truly skilled is very difficult.”

“Why is that?”

“Haha, well, it’s because they all die before they can build up that skill.”

The School Master said something quite chilling with a smiling face.

Most expeditions heading to Ruins sites vanish without a trace.

“Eight years… that’s a very stable career.”

No, it was unparalleled.

Looking at other notices, most had only 2-4 years of experience.

“Preliminary pass. It fits our criteria perfectly.”

Veronica took out a pen and marked the notice with a star.

Ray said he would open an Ignis account, and once the vehicle requisition was complete, he would recruit an expedition team and depart for the Ruins.

The estimated date was about ten days later.

The departure date mentioned in the recruitment notice by the 8-year veteran expert was also around that time.

Feeling proud of successfully completing Ray’s request, Veronica continued with light steps.

She visited various general stores, purchased the requested daily necessities and tools, and completed the second request.

Jingle─

Holding the paper bag filled with items, she stepped out the door and thought.

‘Hehe, as expected, Ray needs me to look after him.’

Ray doesn’t know how to love himself.

So I have to love him in his place.

‘Love…?’

Veronica was momentarily startled by the word she used.

She immediately corrected herself.

‘Ahem, ahem, it’s not love. Just a teeny-tiny bit of concern. It’s so hot today, my cheeks are burning like this. Phew, it’s hot.’

It was early November, winter.

At that moment, a tuft of Veronica’s bangs shot straight up into the air like a lightning rod.

It swirled around and then pointed in one direction.

‘……!’

A signal that Ray was nearby.

Her heart’s pulse quickened.

A sudden surge of energy coursed through her body.

Holding her excited and swelling heart, Veronica sped forward unhesitatingly in the direction her radar pointed.

‘He said he was visiting the mansion of that Wizard named Binjin again today for a meal.’

Unlike yesterday, maybe they were eating outside instead of at the mansion?

She had no intention of disturbing his work at all.

But wouldn’t it be okay to just see his face from afar and pass by?

With her heart pounding like that, she passed through the final alleyway.

And when she spotted Ray across the street.

“……”

Thud! Clatter!

Veronica dropped the paper bag she was holding.

A moment that felt as if time had stopped.

Amidst the small noises made by the items rolling in all directions.

In the time it took for the corners of her mouth, which had been drawn into a smile, to droop endlessly and slowly return to their original shape.

And finally, time resumed.

“Who is that…? That girl…?”

Veronica’s face was cold.

Her icy gaze was fixed on the blue-haired girl walking beside Ray.

The action she took thereafter was swift.

Whoosh!

She summoned a gust of wind, gathered the items she had bought, and stuffed them into the bag slung over her shoulder.

After tying her shoelaces, she got up and began tailing Ray and the blue vixen.

Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!

Her emotions were intense, but her tailing was stealthy.

Veronica bought a hat and sunglasses from a stall and put them on.

Pretending to be a passerby, hiding behind fountains or utility poles, she followed the two.

How much time passed like that?

───?

────.

Ray and the blue vixen had a conversation inaudible to her in front of a restaurant entrance and went inside.

Veronica, who counted to 15 in her heart and followed them in─

“I’m sorry. This place is for members only.”

─was blocked at the entrance.

Beyond the guard, she could see Ray and the blue vixen seated at a window table on the first floor.

Without taking her eyes off them, Veronica said.

“I have a membership.”

“May I have your name, please?”

“Veronica.”

Taking advantage of the guard checking the list, Veronica tried to dash into the side space.

And when she came to her senses, she was being dragged by the scruff of her neck and thrown back outside the entrance.

“I’m getting sick of this. Street urchins trying to sneak in and cause trouble.”

Bang!

The sound of the door closing behind her was heard.

“……”

Looking through the window, Ray and the blue vixen were holding menus and giving their order to a waiter.

Looking around, Veronica spotted a bench not far away.

She went behind it and peeked only her eyes over the top.

It was a position from which she could secretly observe the first-floor window.

‘We haven’t even eaten out alone together yet…!’

The strap of the bag gripped in Veronica’s hand crumpled and wrinkled.

It was at that moment that Veronica’s large pupils opened even wider.

She saw a familiar-looking band-aid on the blue vixen’s finger.

‘That’s the band-aid I gave Ray…!’

Why are you wearing that?

Did Ray give it to you?

Veronica trembled with a sense of betrayal.

It was a moment when the adage from her orphanage days─from a certain Unni (10 years old)─that there wasn’t a single trustworthy man in the world, pierced her heart.

‘He called me his sun…! He gave me flowers…! And he said he planned to propose within a hundred years…!’

The top part of the bench gripped in Veronica’s hand shattered on the spot.

Just then, she saw Ray reaching his hand toward the blue vixen’s face, perhaps to brush her hair away.

Veronica’s lips moved on their own.

“Ray, if you don’t want to see me go crazy, pull that hand back.”

“Noona, if you don’t want to see me go crazy, slap that hand away.”

At the overlapping voices, Veronica turned her head to the side.

She could see a blue-haired boy with a similarly flustered expression.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

A brief silence.

The two spoke simultaneously again.

“I’m Ray’s sun.”

“I’m the cool, romantic man of the Sector who protects Ayla Noona.”

Silence again.

The two thought simultaneously.

‘This kid is weird. Did he hit his head?’

‘Is this Noona mentally unwell?’

After conversing warily, the two soon realized they were on the same side.

“Ah! If you received flowers as a gift, that says it all! Now I see, you must be my sister-in-law!”

“Right? That’s where it ends, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sister-in-law. For now, let’s think of a way to separate Heiler Hyung and my Noona.”

The two joined forces and began plotting how to get into the restaurant.

“How about we try this?”

“No. My idea first is…”

It was urgent, pressing.

For all they knew, at this very moment, some intimate love talk might be happening inside the restaurant.

And at the same time.

At the window seat on the first floor of the restaurant.

“I’ve never cried once in my entire life.”

Ayla said with a voice tinged with a hint of pride.

Ray nodded as if to say, ‘Indeed.’

“That’s impressive.”

I have cried before.

When I witnessed the deaths of Niles and the children in Sector 50.

Even I, emotionally numb, was swept up in genuine sorrow and cried.

In that sense, Ayla never having shed tears… was a truly remarkable thing.

‘Then I’d win if I made her cry just twice.’

Thinking that inwardly, Ray continued the conversation.

“Is there a reason you don’t cry?”

“I’m not… really sure. Tears just don’t come out. It’s been like that since I was little.”

“How little?”

“Six? Seven? I’m not exactly sure, but it’s been like that for as long as I can remember.”

That meant the Ice Field residing in Ayla’s Vessel had existed since she was little.

Because it was the Ice Field that froze emotions like sadness, pain, and overwhelming feelings, blocking tears.

‘It doesn’t seem like the Ice Field was there from birth.’

There likely was some trigger or cause for the Ice Field to form.

Figuring that out would probably be a great help in analyzing the Ice Field he possessed.

“You said you lived with your parents before entering the mansion. I heard a brief version yesterday, but can you tell me more? What kind of people were they?”

Ayla hesitated before answering.

“It’s not difficult, but… it might be a boring story, is that okay?”

“It’s fine, tell me.”

“Alright. First, my parents were…”

During the story, Ray carefully observed Ayla’s Vessel.

The basic emotion Ayla held for her parents was affection.

‘The mother’s side is fine.’

But when talking about her father, a great fear appeared alongside.

…It seemed similar in shape to the fear that appeared when talking about Binjin.

“What do you think about Binjin?”

“Huh, Master…?”

Beside the fear of her father.

Fear of Binjin appeared.

Beyond similar in shape, they were almost identical.

‘Is she equating them? The two men?’

As Ray continued observing, Ayla voiced her thoughts about Binjin.

“About Master… I feel most of all a great sense of gratitude. He took Ain and me in without asking for anything in return when we had nowhere to go. He’s a wonderful person in terms of character.”

One sentence caught Ray’s attention, and he leaned forward.

“Wonderful in terms of character?”

“Yes. Sometimes he speaks harshly… but it’s all for our own good.”

Ray leaned back against the sofa again, crossed his arms, and looked at Ayla.

The doll-like girl before him was saying the exact same thing as her Master.

“I am also aware that my words are often laced with thorns. However, that all stems from my desire for my disciples to do well.”

Binjin’s words were the truth.

It meant that, regardless of others’ perceptions, at least he himself thought so.

And in Ayla’s case…

‘She’s lying.’

She was not taking Binjin’s harsh words as having any good intentions at all.

Because.

On Ayla’s Ice Field, indigo stains had appeared in abundance, ones he hadn’t seen yesterday.

‘It must be because of Binjin’s harsh words.’

A picture naturally formed.

All sorts of negative emotions blossoming from hearing the harsh words clumping together to become black Mana.

And that black Mana dripping like raindrops onto the blue Ice Field.

Thus, indigo stains containing feelings of inferiority and self-loathing blossoming like bruises.

Of course, perhaps due to the Ice Field’s strong power, the indigo stains were gradually fading.

But he thought.

If such things were repeated.

And repeated again, then someday.

‘Stains that don’t fade will form.’*

And it was then.

That Ray discovered something on the inside of Ayla’s wrist, under her sleeve.

It was a dark blue-black bruise.